Back to the Future with Blue Collar Work?

(Note: This topic is so important, and fast-moving, that I decided to return to, and significantly update, it here — two and half years after I last addressed it: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/is-it-still-worth-going-to-college/)

Is it still worth going to college?

For youngsters today (Gen Z and Gen Alpha), the AI revolution is scary given its “intellectual” capabilities. Computer programmers, financial service workers, and other similar white-collar wannabees are finding it difficult to gain entry-level jobs. As a result, a lot of young people are skipping college and jumping straight into blue collar training: trades like plumbing, electrical work, construction, and all sorts of not so simple hands-on jobs.

Right now, in my post-retirement work as a half-time Professor of Communications (Peres Academic Center, Rehovot), my students face this dilemma and turn to me for advice. Here’s what I tell them – and it’s not straightforward.

First, college is expensive. In America, insanely so; in Israel, where salaries overall are significantly lower, private college tuition is far cheaper but still relatively “expensive”: around 30,000 shekels a year (a B.A. is three intensive years in Israel; four less concentrated years in most overseas countries; tuition at Israel’s public universities are very low – about $4000 a year!). On the other hand (pun intended), blue collar training programs are shorter, cheaper, and the trainee starts working (and earning!) much faster – quite important in Israel where students start their professional career later, given their prior 2 or 3-year army service. Thus, for many people, especially those from families where money’s tight, foregoing a B.A. degree feels like the obvious move.

Second, and perhaps more important from a long-term perspective, are future professional prospects. AI seems to be slowly but inexorably taking over almost all white-collar work, especially lower and middle echelon positions. For example, Amazon recently fired 14,000 middle managers; this week Oracle announced its intention to let go 20-30,000 workers in order to fund increased AI infrastructure; in Israel, the last year saw a sharp drop in junior high-tech positions (even veteran workers, ages 36–45, have also seen a significant rise in unemployment). Looking towards the future and given the pace of AI improvement, few “brain” positions seem to be safe. To be sure, there is still work today for the true creatives, but even in this we are finding AI already functioning at a useful level (writing poetry and fiction; producing useful art and video, functionally abstracting long documents; etc.).

So, if such work seems to be going out the door, why not turn to hands-on type of work? There are even two more advantages: such work doesn’t keep you glued to a desk all day with all the negative health such sitting around entails; there’s even lots of pride in building, repairing, and seeing actual results. Moreover, these jobs are finally gaining some social respect as the public has begun realizing how essential are skilled trades – such labor isn’t just a fallback anymore; it’s a valued, legitimate career path.

Sounds good, no? Unfortunately, this mindset suffers from misunderstanding the breadth of the threat. That’s because while “intellectual” AI has taken off, “physical” AI is not all that far behind. In a word: AI robots. There are already robots that move like humans and can perform relatively complex movements like packaging as well as picking up and putting down objects. In research labs, robots are being developed that have touch sensation almost as good as humans (smell too!) – and even a system that generates realistic videos to teach robots real-world movements that they haven’t seen before. There are prototypes for plumbing, electricity robots, and automated farming tools. If you’re starting out in a trade, within a few years you’ll be facing competition not just from other skilled workers, but from machines that are getting smarter and nimbler by the year.

Moreover, it’s not only manufacturing jobs at risk; service workers such as taxi drivers are being pushed out with the advent of driverless cabs (e.g., Waymo, already servicing several US cities). Indeed, earlier this week Israel’s Transport Ministry approved a supervised autonomous-driving trial (https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/israel-news/2507006/israel-authorizes-tesla-autonomous-driving-trial-under-human-supervision.html). Think of postal workers, and how email and social media have already decimated their ranks.

What does this all mean for the future of employment? Here the jury is out. On the one hand, this scenario has played out several times throughout history, with new technologies disemploying entire professions but at the same time opening up brand new types of work, usually even more lucrative. From hunter-gatherers we became farmers; from farming we moved to manufacturing; from the factory we moved to service offices; and from services we morphed into information workers. It’s possible that AI and robotics will similarly open up brand new professional avenues that we can only dimly see today.

On the other hand, each of these past economic revolutions entailed a greater use of intellect. But what happens when AI’s “brainpower” surpasses that of humans? Where can we “jump up” to for the next economic stage? No easy answers are at hand, especially when it is clear that AI’s capabilities will only continue to grow.

How can we plan for the future? What should we tell our children and grandchildren to do? For that matter, what should governments do to prepare for the (potential) economic and professional tsunami? I’ll offer several practical and policy ideas in my blog post next week – even answering the question I started with: Is it still worth going to college?

Stay tuned…