Very interesting perspective considering most people are rushing into STEM right not because it’s “the future.” From Cuban’s perspective, AI will be replacing all of those tech jobs, and robots will soon be replacing a lot of jobs in STEM.
Robots will require lots of engineers to design and program them. Machine learning will require lots of mathematicians, programmers, high performance computing experts, and signal processing experts. If Cuban’s envisioning some type of techno-utopia, where almost all jobs done today are automated, that tsunami will sweep away all majors, liberal arts and STEM alike.
I don’t think engineers necessarily lack the other skills and perspectives. S is an EE who loves history, political science and reading. He has excellent critical thinking skills and I don’t think studying EE handicapped him in any way.
“Jobs that rely more on personal judgement, critical thinking and creativity”
Sounds like what an accountant does every day. We already have automation in the financial world - most of the work is in interpreting and presenting the information. He used the wrong job in his analogy.
Workers without technical skills or who don’t “get” tech or data are going to lose out in the business world of the future. I work with senior attorneys that can’t even manage the newest version of word - and they are in their 40s… not old. They are handicapped by this.
^ Yes, it’s clear that Cuban has no idea what accountants actually do.
The way I would describe it is that accounting is law with numbers. And the finance world had seen automation for longer than law, which is why it’s not as devastated as law has been by AI (for the longest time, lawyers were being paid insane amounts for brain-dead tasks; it was the equivalent of using a small army to do basic calculations instead of a spreadsheet).
I have a hard time taking Russ Hanneman, uh Mark Cuban, seriously. Also, is Bob Lord’s nickname Captain Obvious? Who doesn’t know that “Someone is going to create something that no one has conceived of before”? Anyway, the article barely touches on the fundamental problem with AI and other “information” related technologies: AI and information-at-your-fingertips is only valuable if someone is using that information to get a job done! If these technologies crater the jobs of the rest of the people then there will be no one to use them and they’ll collapse. There has to be a give and take between the virtual/technology world and the physical world.
BTW, I’ve repeatedly told my D18 to get a degree in a field of interest … but also learn how to write code so that she can use it to help her in her field. Her current plan is to major in Cognitive Science with a minor in Computer Science.
Do you think so? I guess AI could replicate different iterations of content loaded into a database for different genres. I don’t think it would be anything new though. At the end of the day I think creativity is very different from intelligence.
@HarvestMoon1 – Totally agree. However, a certain amount of intelligence is necessary to enable creativity, which causes the confusion between the two.
Cuban knows what accountants do. Certain part sof accounting can and will be replaced by robots including most parts of the payroll function. But, as others on this thread have pointed out, accountants also doing assurances services (auditing) and tax compliance (which is 99% reliant on software), tax planning and managerial accounting which is much harder to automate.
Still, Cuban’s point is worth considering. I wa a CPA for 11 years and have taught accounting at a CC FT for over 20 years. My 19 YO son might major in accounting and we are unsure because of AI. Anyone not factoring AI in to their college and career planning is a fool. Plain and simple.
I’m not sure I am ready to advise my son to go LA though. How about LA plus something practical/vocational? Also, the go LA routine might work if you are coming out of an Ivy or a similar school. Not so sure if it works coming out of beer drinking U.
Will practice how to use our left hands more help because lefties are said to be more creative due to their use of the wrong side of the brain? Such practice to stimulate that side of the brain, if starts young, could be more impactful than what college major one picks. Only a hypothesis.
Automation is here and becomes more and more prevalent. It does have implications on education.
A funny thing is that the title of the thread talked about finance, but the OP’s intro had nothing about it. Even in the links provided, it is still not clear about its relationship with finance.
@prof2dad Good article, I like how it breaks down each occupation by % of time spent in different activities: Managing others, Applying expertise, Stakeholder Interactions, Unpredictable physical work, Data collection, Data processing and Predictable physical work. With the last 3 areas being the most susceptible to automation.
For example, most of the finance folks in our company already have data collection and processing automated. They spend the majority of their time with applying expertise and stakeholder interactions (lots of meetings to review the numbers, explain the numbers, and develop action plans to improve the numbers).
^Hopefully machines will be able to replace McKinsey
@droppedit If she’s not interested in CS, your D doesn’t need to know how to code in order to understand how systems and data work. Basic courses in database design overview and even basic training in software tools is all you need to be ready for non CS careers in the future.
I agree with Mark that critical thinking is important to interpretation of AI. In the end there’s always a person behind/running/interpreting the program. English, philosophy, and Arts do not have the critical thinking and Analysis market cornered. Core Curriculums at universities should include the most important courses for developing critical thinking and communication skills.
Also High School should do a much better job on this we relied too much on College to teach critical thinking and analysis skills that should be well developed by the time students get to college.
It would be hard for computers to replace structural engineers or architects, fortunately. There’s too much creativity involved, figuring out how to get everything to work and communicating construction details to builders. I’m not worried about my job.
"most of the finance folks in our company already have data collection and processing automated. They spend the majority of their time with applying expertise and stakeholder interactions "
That is very true. In some banks, they even outsourced some of their back office (data processing, compliance, IT, HR) functions entirely. Also, some banks are now about into the use of blockchain to keep middle office and back office as lean as possible. For people who do not know how banks work, when we use the word “banker,” we tend to refer to those people work at the front office, who interact with clients. Many finance/economics majors from target schools try to work at the front office, interact with clients, and generate revenue. Finance/economics majors do not necessarily have competitive advantages in compliance, IT, or HR relative to the other majors.
