As of late, there's been a question I've grappled with more than I expected. Parents of small kids knowing about me doing a Master's degree and working in different countries asked me for an opinion: "What would you recommend our children do professionally, or what careers should they follow?"

Pace of change is so rapid that I was simply shocked that nothing came to my mind other than the standard answers like doctors, police, or "skilled trades". Will they become trendy and prestigious again just like they once were (construction, welders, etc.)?

Finance? Will be disrupted. Engineering? Likely to be disrupted, but a tad later. Middle management positions will be cut. Everything will be "disrupted" to some degree, but many professions where people spend their days sitting in front of a screen would be the first ones to go. It's quite a monumental shift happening, and I'm asking myself whether human judgment as the quintessential pillar of value will remain valuable in the future? Final decisions are surely authorized by humans and their emotional component, but will it be of value in as much as it's been touted to never be taken over by machines?

We as humans just live our lives while assuming risks and trying to provide value.

If you're not applying different forms of leverage (media, capital or human labor) in your endeavours, you are likely to never be "safe" or "well-off" in the long-term. These things are inevitably coming for us as we know it. When thought of positively however, these models and future ML / AI tech is just yet another huge lever for us to apply towards a variety of problems while trying to be useful to one another and our communities...

P.S. We were visting a doctor who graduated recently and saw him use Google when evaluating different symptoms of my partner. Maybe that's not such a "saint" profession to be safe from impeding automation either? Who knows...