At least for the moment, AI still needs knowledge workers to spec and prompt and check. AI makes knowledge workers more productive, but it doesn't eliminate the need for them.

And if knowledge workers are more productive, then knowledge work is cheaper. Cheaper knowledge work increases demand for knowledge work. So the number of workers required might actually increase. It also might not, but first order analysis that assumes decreased knowledge workers is not sufficient.

C.f. garment makers. Partial automation of clothes making made clothes cheaper, so now people have closets full of hundreds of garments rather than the 2 sets our great-grandparents likely had. There are now more people making garments now than there was 100 years ago.

I wonder how the ratio of people making garments relative to the total world population has changed though in this example.

No easy answer since most garments > 100 years ago were home-made. But I can confidently assert without data that the number of man-hours of labor in the average closet is substantially up.

garment makers chosen because of this recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43450515

the more obvious recent example is that we employ more bank tellers than we did before the ATM, because the ATM reduced the amount of labor hours needed to operate a bank branch and made a lot of marginal bank branches pencil out.

Only the recent trend of online banking services is really actually turning this around.

Corporations that over-hired over the past 10 years needed an excuse to cut the layers of fat and bureaucracy out, and AI came along at just the right time. It doesn’t matter if AI is increasing productivity; what matters is that people think it might be.

Bachelor Degrees need a complete rethink, it was basically modified finishing school for rich capital owners, needing to make their children of proper class before they could take over their businesses.

It then became a vocational degree for the working class, despite being completely detached from useful skills for a wide swathes of degrees. The only value is that you could talk the talk and become a member of the professional managerial class if you impressed the right hiring committee/individual.

In spite of this, we decided the working class should take out crippling loans to pay for this degree, and be in debt for the rest of their working life.

It's not sustainable, and just forgiving the debt only will make it all more expensive and less aligned with actual results we desire (useful workers).

> despite being completely detached from useful skills for a wide swathes of degrees

It's a nice suggestion, but it's one that isn't supported by the evidence. Even controlling for other factors, a college degree makes more productive workers. And given that it's controlling for other factors, "selection bias" becomes a hard argument to make. STEMbros get real arrogant about their degrees (I have one; I've seen it first hand), but like it or not the person with an English degree still learned a lot of useful skills.

Going to uni to major in a specific career is how you get screwed when available careers change.

I don't think there is any doubt spending 4 years studying a subject will increase skills in some areas. The question is whether the benefits are worth the cost (and that question applies both to the individual student and society as a whole).

Remember the cost of all this is absolutely massive. Mostly the 4 years of lost time.

It doesn't have to be though. In Europe the vast majority of people attend public universities that don't require having to end up with a degree and crippling debt.

I left uni almost 20 years ago, but one year of my tuition was about 1000USD at the time, something I could easily afford with a part time job. I'm sure the cost is higher now, but I would have thought it is still orders of magnitude cheaper than in the UK or the US. Germany subsidizes university tuition fees for a huge percentage of students, and adds a monthly stipend for expenses and free public transport while enrolled in uni.

Your point is valid, challenging the worth/cost of higher education. But I think it is the cost part what is broken in some parts of the world, not necessarily the worth part.

I don't view 4 years in university as lost time at all, even though I now work in a field mostly unrelated to my core studies. I grew a lot in many ways that made me a better, smarter, more responsible, more well-rounded person during that time. And I attribute much of my following career success to those foundations I built then. Viewing it as purely vocational training is incredibly shortsighted.

Maybe lower education should just have a different schedule with other activity years? I'm not particularly impressed with the average American's ability to be a positive element of society and despite all the problems, I think liberal arts students are probably better than the rest when considered over their lifetime. But why should each individual take loans to have the critical thinking to vote in the interest of larger institutions?

This is a bit black and white. Or maybe just cynical :)

It's inarguable that bachelor's degrees had real vocational utility in the last few decades (despite the memes).

A variety of degrees from a state school (with in-state tuition) would lead to good, white collar employement along with modest loans (if any) so there was clear ROI.

Education can't be standardized because business is not standardized. It's about relationships and every shop does things their own way. Teachers should just go contract and provide their own courses. The degree is really can't designate what the person knows.