AI Is Coming for Your Job—And That’s Okay ❤️

High school students (and their parents) all have AI on the brain.

What’s AI going to do to my future?

My college major?

My career?

Let’s break down the question, twist it around, and slap it back together until we can answer it.

But here’s the punchline right up front:

Yes, AI will take your job. And that’s okay. ❤️

(for context: I'm a professional programmer and an AI power user)

The AI-ification of the Office Job

AI is built to crush intellectual work: "any work you can do from a comfy office chair". Think accounting, programming, marketing, graphic design, project management, and customer support.

Things you can do for hours at a time from a comfy air-conditioned office chair.

Until recently, these skills were siloed into "careers", a skill you could attach your identity to.

"I'm a journalist", or "I'm a graphic designer", or "I'm a marketer".

But for years now, these jobs have become increasingly accessible.

Whole software industries have emerged around Project Management, Customer Relations Management, Education Management.

Tasks that used to require reams of paper and rows of filing cabinets can now be done better and more-automatically and with minimal training.

At the same time, harder skills like software development and accounting have been spread to the masses by Youtube. You can learn those skills, at any time, for free. Universities are no longer gatekeepers through which you must pass to learn advertising.

Enter AI: able to do even better at even more things, automatically.

The combination of free education, powerful software and AI tools is great for small-business owners like me. I’m a one-man army. I can handle project management, product design, advertising, social media, content creation, web dev, education coaching—all by myself. It’s me and my stack of software tools.

It's bad for those with an old-school mindset who hope that "copywriter" can be their whole-ass career.

Now, there are copywriters. But the most successful copywriters today are the ones who do it all—who know how to market and sell their skills like a Swiss Army knife.

The future belongs, in other words, to the multi-skilled.

Gated Professions: Professional Careers

Here’s a twist: Not all careers are on AI’s hit list.

What’s safe? The gated professions. 

Think about it: You can make a website anytime you want—no license required. But you can’t build a bridge, perform heart surgery, or represent someone in court without a degree and certification.

Engineers, doctors, lawyers—these careers are locked behind regulatory gates. And until the day AI agents can legally step in and do those jobs (if that day ever comes), these jobs are safely human.

Will the gates open? Maybe. I wouldn’t bet on it happening tomorrow, but never say never.

The word is maybe.

The Trades & the Robots

So how about the skilled trades?

AI can write copy and edit videos. But it can't fix your roof or you car or patch that hole you punched in your drywall.

AI can't.

But robots can.

If you're in the trades, it's wise to plan for a future where manual skills are replaced by robots. But that time may be decades away.

(2017 was the "learn to code" year when truck drivers were put on notice that robotic trucks would take their jobs. Needless to say, that's still at least years away.)

This is a well-appreciated reason for the upsurge in students pursuing the trades: they pay well, don't require college, and are impervious to short-term AI takeover.

So: are robots coming for your septic system diver job? Maybe. But probably not this decade.

So: What should I do?

How teens best prepare for an increasingly AI-powered future?

You build skills, and you embrace AI.

1. Build Skills, not a Profession

Because intellectual skills are so accessible, and increasingly easy to perform, remember that you can learn the skills to be a marketer, copywriter, advertiser, graphic designer, programmer, or nearly anything else, for free, and relatively quickly.

Yet, each of these skills does take practice and is worth investing in.

As you move from job to job, or project to project, you'll be able to collect and accumulate a pile of skills that 20 years ago would have been separate careers.

Life-long learning isn’t optional anymore. It's now just table stakes.

2. Use AI

Use AI for learning. Use AI to get better at learning.

Use AI to work through issues at work, in your personal life, in choosing a college, in choosing a major.

Incorporate AI into your processes to become fluent in chatGPT (or any LLM) as your copilot.

That’s how you go from the pre-AI world to the post-AI world without losing your footing.

Is this all kinda dark & scary though?

Sure, there’s a dark side. The same was true with the internet, smartphones, social media. New technology always has teeth.

But, like anything powerful, it’s a tool. And you get to decide how you use it.

So get out there. Experiment. Build. Break things and put them back together. AI’s here to stay, so make it work for you.

(As with all technology, taking breaks during the day (meals, bedrooms) and for longer periods (retreats, vacations), is, if nothing else, highly recommended.)

Thanks for reading, and good luck out there.