How Could Artificial Intelligence (AI) Affect Your Career Choice?

Written by Nina, UCLA MA; Former Teaching Fellow, Harvard University; and author of 20 textbooks

I'm writing this from the other side of the mountain. From the perspective of having already chosen my majors that launched my career, I know how crucial a major is, and how it can either pave a smooth road or a road filled with unwanted bumps. But here's a possible wrench thrown into the mix --How can AI affect your choice of majors in college, and ultimately, your job prospects after you graduate? 

From industrialization to the computer, technological advances have both made our lives easier and displaced jobs in some industries. Will AI do the same? Probably, but because we know changes will come, now is the time to anticipate and adjust.

I'm not suggesting you major in AI if you're not interested in it, though if I were about to become a college student again, I would certainly take classes in AI in general, and as it pertained to my future employment.

Step 1 — Factoring AI into your choice of majors — You have to choose your major first. 

You may say, "Why would I choose my major first if AI might change my job prospects?" Again, I'm coming from the other side of the mountain. When we get to Step 2, you'll see how you can make many majors work for you, but you need to decide what really fits your strengths and deep interests first. 

We all have a bucket of time on this earth. The first thing we need to do is find out what's important to you.

First, rate the following objectives from 1 to 5 (5 is the most important; 1 is the least important to you.). These are the things that we can achieve through our jobs. They aren't just the areas where we excel because sometimes people perform well at something, but they wouldn't do that activity unless they had to. Remember — You might spend decades in your chosen field, so select the things that resonate with you.                  

         _______ Have work/life balance

         _______ Make a lot of money

         _______ Use my (science/math/language/marketing/healthcare, etc.) interests

         _______ Please my family

         _______ Become my own boss

         _______ Easily find a job

         _______ Help society/help other people through my work

         _______ Be intellectually stimulated

         _______ Keep moving forward with technology

         _______ Explore my own creativity

Make a list of all of your "5" ratings. Choose just the most important objectives -- no more than three "5" ratings.

Now search those "5" ratings by asking a search engine, "What jobs are there where I can (Example: explore my own creativity, make a good income, and be intellectually stimulated)? If you have trouble finding appealing jobs, ask a counselor for help.

Finally, search "What major would be helpful in college to succeed in (___________) job?"

Step 2 — How might your future job be affected by AI?

The Harvard Business Review cited a study done by Evercore ISI wherein they consolidated volumes of academic and economic data to come to some conclusions about the effects of AI.

The data included 160 million U.S. jobs, 20 industries, 250+ subsectors, and over 800 occupations. They examined how workers used 52 abilities in 41 activities to perform their jobs.

Though AI performed cognitive tasks well, when the task was creative or strength-based, AI showed weaknesses. In other words, the more social interaction, empathy or physical labor that a job requires, the less exposure it has to AI.

More specifically, these general sectors represent the shares of each job exposed to AI, with Legal at 45.2%, Business and Financial Operations at 44.6%, and all the way down to Health Care Support at 26.1%. (See the full job chart, Potential AI Impact on Different Occupations, at https://hbr.org/2023/10/is-your-job-ai-resilient)

The World Economic Forum "Future of Jobs Report" for 2023 found evidence to support the value of the human approach on the job. Analytical thinking is considered a core skill by more companies than any other skill, and constitutes, on average, 9% of the core skills reported by companies. Creative thinking, another cognitive skill, ranks second, ahead of three self-efficacy skills -- resilience, flexibility and agility; motivation and self awareness; and curiosity and lifelong learning - in recognition of the importance of workers' ability to adapt to disrupted workplaces. Dependability and attention to detail rank sixth, behind technological literacy. The core skills top 10 is completed by two attitudes relating to working with others -- empathy and active listening, and leadership and social influence.

Cognitive skills are reported to be growing in importance the most quickly, reflecting the increasing importance of complex problem-solving in the workplace. Surveyed businesses report creative thinking to be growing in importance slightly more rapidly than analytical thinking. Technology literacy is the third-fastest growing core skill.

The socio-emotional attitudes which businesses consider to be growing in importance the most quickly are curiosity and lifelong learning; resilience, flexibility and agility; and motivation and self-awareness. Systems thinking, AI and big data, talent management, service orientation and customer service complete the top 10 growing skills.

What these articles show is that companies are pouring major investments into AI. They're upskilling their current workforce in the areas this article has touched on. AI impacts many industries, changing the way things have been done, but creativity, reasoning, and other human skills also seriously impact those industries.

Conclusion

These above-mentioned creative and reasoning skills can apply to anyone in any major.

In my own experience, UCLA for me was a lottery win, but almost immediately, I recognized a weakness. I chose an English major because I wanted to teach, but I paid for my own education by working throughout my studies, and as this fact sunk in, I still wanted to teach, but I became dissatisfied with my major. English studies didn't represent everything I needed.  

I wanted an education, and this meant I needed to understand the story of how humans came to this moment and how the branches of knowledge fit into that story. In short, I needed to understand the world to know my place in it, and for that, I needed the information that led us here, how this information would affect the current world, and what some of the most intelligent people at UCLA thought about all of this.  I needed to know what had passed and have some idea of the extent of what we know now to understand how the path forward might look. I thought I already knew it, but at UCLA, I learned how to think — the one skill prized above others according to the World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report.

To this day, I draw on my education. I've been able to navigate some difficult roads because even though my majors were English and linguistics, college was a buffet of classes, and in exposing myself to other areas that it offered, I learned the skills that allow me to continuously take other roads when the main road gets clogged. Here's the lottery win -- I could do the toughest job of all — improve the well-being of my family.

Finally, remember that this AI information mirrors predictions. Until we're further into AI, we won't know how accurate it will be, how much we can trust the solutions that AI gives, or whether AI can bridge the gap between what information it's been fed and the human ability to creatively approach new challenges. Whatever happens, however, AI represents an important part of the equation for the future, and it should be taken into account when you choose the major you'll focus on in college.