A Letter to High School Students on How to Technology-Proof Your Career

As a high school student today, you're standing on the brink of a rapidly evolving world. AI and robotics will be changing the face of traditionally prestigious and high-paying jobs. To thrive, you’ll need to adapt by learning to use AI tools, cultivating strong interpersonal abilities, and building emotional resilience. Embracing these skills now will prepare you to navigate and succeed in the changing future of work.

Note: This is specifically aimed at countries where the cost of living is somewhat high. The below may not apply to countries where wages are lower.

The Future of Work

The State of Technology

AI companies are focused on automating many jobs, the first case of which are customer service roles. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, recently released a product that would make it trivial for companies to automate phone calls, a big part of jobs such as sales development representative roles or call center agents. This is part of the wider movement to build so-called “agent” companies.

In robotics, we’re seeing a recent push for humanoid robotics in factory work and social functions, including Figure 02> and Enchanted Tools, as well as more niche specialties such as piloting.

For some interesting links on the state of robotics and AI, look here and here.

Which Careers Will Evolve?

All job functions that solely operate in the digital world will be touched by AI. Let’s take a look at software engineering. In traditional software engineering, entry-level software engineers are in charge of finishing small tasks that can be completed in several weeks. An example is creating an API to retrieve, update, and delete customer data for a company’s internal dashboard at a startup. In the future, AI will be used to complete basic engineering projects.

In this world, the role of an entry-level software engineer may be to complete a larger number of projects by leveraging AI, which means there will be fewer entry-level job openings.

To succeed in engineering, systems design and architecture will become more important than ever. More concretely, classes such as Stanford’s Software Project and internships will be more important than ever. The lines between product and engineering will blur, leading to the rise in popularity of product engineering. In this world, it’s important that you start developing a product mindset, thinking about what should be built, instead of only how.

To generalize outside of software engineering, gathering and processing information in various forms (spreadsheets, slides, etc.) will become easier with AI, and overall, entry-level workers may be expected to take on more projects or have a more expanded scope.

Which Careers May Be More in Demand?

Jobs that require a lot of interfacing with the physical world - such as specific subdomains of most engineering disciplines, e.g., mechanical, electrical, aerospace, civil, bio- and chemical engineering, and materials science - are likely to stay the same in shape and form. This also includes non-engineering disciplines such as subsets of medicine that relies on in-person work.

In addition to the above traditionally high-earning jobs, the below jobs may actually see an increase in demand:

• The Trades: Technicians for self-driving cars, plumbing, and electricians will likely be done by humans. This will probably also increase in demand as more cities are devastated by natural disasters due to climate change.
• Therapy and Community Organizing: Jobs that rely heavily on human connection and empathy will increase in demand as people lose jobs or face increasing job security anxiety.
• Academic Research: While there is also work in using AI to generate research, research, especially in medicine, physical sciences, and robotics, will be areas that will continue to need human creativity (and an in-depth understanding of physics and the real-world environment).

What is One to Do?

As you’re navigating high school and college, I’ll leave you with a couple of guideposts as you go about the rest of your educational journey:

Guidepost 1: Learn to Accelerate Yourself with AI Tools

Now with AI, you can learn and do so much more. Learn to use NotebookLM, Claude, and OpenAI. A good way to keep up to date is to check Hackernews weekly, where new AI tools surface in the tech circles as they gain popularity.

Guidepost 2: Cultivate Interpersonal Skills

AI tools make it easier than ever to start and run businesses as a one-person shop, with tools to help with marketing, finances, and more. In this world, learn how to sell, connect with people, and think about first principles.

Guidepost 3: Start Building a Practice for Emotional Resilience

There’s going to be a lot of turmoil in the upcoming years, and internal alignment and stillness will be crucial in coming out for the better.

I hope this is helpful for you as you embark on your journey - gear up, stay curious, and good luck!

Best,

Special thanks to the people who helped look over this post, including Todor, Clovis, Hal, Ruth, Michael, and the high school students of THINK Global School.