The article title is click bait here is the full article:
Wondering what your career looks like in our increasingly uncertain, AI-powered future? According to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, it’s going to involve less of the comfortable office work to which most people aspire, a more old fashioned grunt work with your hands.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum yesterday, Karp insisted that the future of work is vocational — not just for those already in manufacturing and the skilled trades, but for the majority of humanity.
In the age of AI, Karp told attendees at a forum, a strong formal education in any of the humanities will soon spell certain doom.
“You went to an elite school, and you studied philosophy; hopefully you have some other skill,” he warned, adding that AI “will destroy humanities jobs.”
Karp, who himself holds humanities degrees from the elite liberal arts institutions of Haverford College and Stanford Law, will presumably be alright. With a net worth of $15.5 billion — well within the top 0.1 percent of global wealth owners — the Palantir CEO has enough money and power to live like a feudal lord (and that’s before AI even takes over.)
The rest of us, he indicates, will be stuck on the assembly line, building whatever the tech companies require.
“If you’re a vocational technician, or like, we’re building batteries for a battery company… now you’re very valuable, if not irreplaceable,” Karp insisted. “I mean, y’know, not to divert to my usual political screeds, but there will be more than enough jobs for the citizens of your nation, especially those with vocational training.”
Now, there’s nothing wrong with vocational work or manufacturing. The global economy runs on these jobs. But in a theoretical world so fundamentally transformed by AI that intellectual labor essentially ceases to exist, it’s telling that tech billionaires like Karp see the rest of humanity as their worker bees.
It seems that the AI revolution never seems to threaten those who stand to profit the most from it — just the 99.9 percent of us building their batteries.
“AI will replace a humanities degree, so don’t bother going to college,” says billionaire who went to college. “I need you to use your hands to build batteries for my shitty AI that doesn’t work.”
Can we replace CEOs and the wealthy with AI? They don’t do anything AI can’t do. Would there be any reason to let them keep massive wealth if they aren’t contributing anything?
Can somebody seriously do something about these savages? Like seriously!
Get to work, plebs. Those guillotines won’t build themselves.
Already do, asshole. Some of us enjoy actually building things.
Hilarious that they’ve pivoted from assembly automation, which is feasible and meaningful and in fact is happening, to arts/humanities automation, which isn’t really possible when you think about how training works.
A lot of menial tasks can be automated and that’s probably fine… There’s a lot of stupid meaningless shit we have to do everyday. And maybe we could eliminate that stuff from the grind considering its all arbitrary, or maybe automate it away.
Regardless, doesn’t the idea that both sides of the aisle, vocational and office jobs, approaching automation mean that maybe we should start talking about things not costing anything anymore?
Go ahead, arsehole. Keep pushing people who have less to lose each day.
They’ll craft tools all right.
Even your guards turn on you eventually.
Idk we’ve learned that American citizens don’t do shit all even when the boots on their neck.
All those folks out protesting and getting in ICE’s face is nothing right?
They’re beginning to stir. The only thing they can do is passively resist and they’re becoming more aware of that each day.
To be fair it’s not on most people’s necks yet. 80% of people are free to ignore what’s happening so far. And most of them have. But the ratchet will click. Likely as not the world will get the bloody spectacle they apparently are craving.
I know you think the snark is cute or funny, but resistance is happening. Courts are ruling on things, people are protesting massively, and Minneapolis is actively resisting. Peacefully. Read your history. Peaceful protest does work.
It isn’t on their neck to be brutally frank. Going after illegal immigrants and terrorizing Minnesota isn’t hitting the vast majority of Americans. History shows when the middle/lower classes become desperate and food becomes an issue that is when the knives come out.
Are they stupid as fuck? On the knowledge of whom does he think their models are trained? Idiotic thieves.
Not just that, but “working with your hands” has been seen all kinds of machines automating people out of jobs for the past 200+ years, AI/LLM will only make automation more capable, and more undercutting of people’s manual labor costs.
if working with my hands like a peasant paid what my job does, I’d do it in a heartbeat. fuck this mental exhaustion and stress, I’d rather be working the field eight hours a day for the same pay
AI is not coming for my job, which leads me to believe it’s not coming for that many other ‘skilled’ jobs
deleted by creator
Building incendiary devices sounds like it could become a fun and profitable handycraft…
i wish the things nobody wishes on anyone on the Palantir CEO.
Personally I’d settle for degloving his limbs, scalpings, crucifying, and then burning him alive. If he dies midway due to shock keep going anyways.
I wish him to sleep in a bed made by AI. Eat a meal made by AI. And then take a flight in a plane made and piloted by AI.
Didn’t Ford’s CEO just say they wanted highschool graduates who could do math to be automotive techs making $120K a year?
Plumbers already make ridiculous amounts of money because there aren’t enough of them.
The median age in my field 5-10 years ago was 55 years old and we aren’t getting an influx of new A&P licensed techs still. The main way the Aviation industry gets it’s techs these days is the military and that’s not even a sure fire way.
Like. CEO’s doing trades when? Because he’s clearly mistaken if he thinks that it’s not going to be CEO’s and upper management people who get their jobs replaced by AI.
They keep trying to replace engineers, software devs and so on with AI at all the tech companies and then having to back out of that decision to keep things running.
CEOs will not be replaced any time soon, because they’re all in each other companies board and they’ll stand for each other (or more exactly from setting examples that could apply to them).
You’re right. But that can only last so long.
Ironically us plebs who work with our hands are the people with the skill set necessary to build those things.
And their goal is to make sure you can’t do anything without THEIR tools/plants, so that you don’t escape from their control.
Imagine we all work with our hands but decide we’ll only sell what we produce to our local communities and not large corporates.
And most jobs are manual labour. That guy wants to seem like he’s making an intelligent prediction about a supposed new paradigm shift for Humanity, but ends up just stating the status quo since a job is a job.
We are also very capable of taking other things DOWN
And we will do it with our own hands… he was right… he was right from the very start
comfortable office work to which most people aspire
What ? Do people even aspire to work in the first place ? And idk about you, but I’d rather have been a craftswoman if you could still live off of that.
You went to an elite school, and you studied philosophy; hopefully you have some other skill
You think AI can do PHILOSOPHY !? AI can barely put together one fucking function when coding, and you think it can do philosophy ? Either he’s knowingly lying (he is) or he understands so little about philosophy that the AI can fool him (probably also true)
I’ve had a conversation with one of my friends a few times. Even if she was filthy rich she would still work. People always claim various things like getting bored or needing something to do or wanting purpose.
I would find plenty to do without working and her take on it blows my mind. In fact every argument I’ve heard from people in general, my response (at least in my head) is that I could still accomplish that thing without employment.
I can keep myself entertained doing the things I enjoy, I can find purpose helping people with my boatloads of cash, I would have time to learn all kinds of new skills. I could start businesses to handle some niche ethically, if the main players are scummy. The possibilities are damn near endless and if I’m ever rich, I’m not going to continue spending my time making some other prick richer.
Maybe they saw too many of us identifying that the biggest problem is the rich, rather than each other, so they’re trying to hide behind a new manufactured enemy.
