What’s the point of degrees if jobs become automated? How to stay motivated amid AI’s rapid acceleration | Gaynor Parkin

Robert is a bright and sparky 19-year-old who has always dreamed of becoming an engineer. He enjoyed maths and science throughout school and was accepted into a local university engineering program. But just months into his first year Robert started having real doubts about whether pursuing this career path was worth the immense effort.

“I feel like I’m wasting my time and money,” he said during one of our sessions. “By the time I graduate in four years, AI is going to be way better than humans at engineering, and everything! What’s even the point of getting this degree if the jobs will all be automated away?”

Robert’s anxiety and loss of motivation were palpable as he spoke. He worried if the goals he set before the rapid acceleration of AI capabilities were naive. Increasingly, Robert began doubting whether any profession is truly future-proof against the onslaught of automation.

For a young person once brimming with ambition and optimism about his future, Robert had succumbed to a fatalistic view that no amount of education or hard work could outrun the machines. Sadly, this view slipped into some hopelessness about long-term career prospects and cast a dark cloud over his daily life. Robert’s sleep and appetite suffered, his grades slipped and he started to withdraw from friends and activities he usually enjoyed.

Working alongside Robert to help him develop a more hopeful view again, our first step was to completely validate the reality of his worries about the rapidly changing world of work. I agreed with him: it is scarily fast, and we cannot know the full impact. He was also right that the effects were likely to be borne more by early and mid-career workers.

Alongside this emotional validation, it was also important for Robert to learn that while personal to him, his fears were being experienced by many young people all around the globe. While numbers vary, a consensus in research from MIT and McKinsey predicted about 30% of current jobs could face automation by the 2030s . But the report predicts an increase in the demand for Stem jobs, which is good news for Robert’s chosen field. We used the analogy together of “tectonic shifts” in the job market which resonated with what he had heard from industry figures.

We discussed at length that his fear about being replaced by ever-smarter machines was an understandable psychological response, not a personality flaw or failure of willpower on his part. Building on a psychological perspective, we worked together to dial back his tendencies toward all-or-nothing thinking, especially that making efforts to pursue a career was completely hopeless.

Creative, adaptable, and entrepreneurial humans will continue to be in high demand

Karina Vold, ethics researcher

Instead, a particular skill we focused on was practising a “Zen” mindset – accepting the reality of technological transformation while also nurturing an attitude of curiosity and openness about the future. We highlighted ideas for Robert to try to stay grounded in the present realities of human-led workplaces, rather than catastrophising about doomsday scenarios decades away, which while possible, cannot be predicted with certainty.

While justified, Robert’s worries do reflect an overly deterministic view of the future job landscape. Many experts predict the transformation unleashed by AI will be more of an evolution than outright labour force decimation.

We also problem-solved how important human skills like emotional intelligence, creativity, and managing uncertainty were precisely the strengths people would need to coexist alongside AI in dynamic future workplaces. By cultivating emotional and cognitive flexibility rather than over-specialising too soon, Robert could position himself for diverse opportunities.

Using a positive psychology framework, I also spent some time helping Robert explore options beyond a job title and reconnect with his intrinsic motivations to become an engineer in the first place – his natural problem-solving abilities and his drive to innovate and create solutions benefiting society. He created a screen saver on his laptop to remind him that wellsprings of human meaning, engagement and fulfilment would remain essential even as roles and industries evolved.

A final step was encouraging Robert to investigate expert knowledge and accurate predictions about AI rather than black-and-white sensationalist news.

According to the organisational psychologists Dr Reece Akhtar and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic: “If you stay curious, practice humility, and focus on others, you will be well positioned to thrive.”

Similarly, the ethics researcher Karina Vold from the University of Toronto said: “New roles dealing with the challenges created by advancing AI systems are likely to open up … creative, adaptable, and entrepreneurial humans will continue to be in high demand.”

And a World Economic Forum report estimated that by 2025 AI could generate 97m new jobs across industries as opportunities emerged alongside displacement risks. Far from a jobless future, the analysis suggested an essential human-machine partnership and need for continuous education to re-skill alongside technological change.

The reality for Robert and other young people is that no one can predict the precise impacts of AI with certainty. But by cultivating a flexible mindset, practising being comfortable with ambiguity, and developing adaptability towards career skills it’s realistic to be hopeful even amid the rapid technological transformations reshaping the future of work.

• Gaynor Parkin is a clinical psychologist and founder at Button Psychology

• This article was amended on 4 September 2024. An earlier version said that Robert’s chosen engineering field was among the highest risk sectors. However, research predicts an increase in the demand for Stem jobs so this reference has been removed.