AI isn’t only changing the job market, but it is also changing the attributes that were once thought to be sufficient to succeed in the corporate world.
Economist Tyler Cowen has said that good grades and working hard won’t be as useful as before with the advent of AI. “ The mere fact that you are smart and got good grades, that now matters much, much less than it used to,” he said. “That used to be often the main thing that mattered. Am I smart? Do I work hard? Did I get good grades? Which kind of means you can follow instructions and not be too much in your own mind or something. That now is greatly devalued,” he added.
“What has risen in value is the question like, are you a good dog trainer? Horse trainer? But with this — and it’s not unrelated to being smart — but being smart, getting good grades, no longer a guarantee of anything. So I think this will be the greatest mobility engine probably the world has seen. Many people will become much wealthier than they imagined they could be, or have greater impact or leverage what they do. Other people, I think, will decide to be more passive. They may end up knowing less. There’s a kind of laziness you can choose ’cause this will answer all your questions. So there will be these two paths: the greater impact path, and the lazy path,” Cowen predicted.
Cowen seemed to be saying that people who take initiative and leverage AI will have an outsized impact in the AI era. Thus far, getting good grades and working hard were two straightforward ways to do well in life. In the AI era, intelligence could be too cheap to meter, and AI could work harder than any human possibly could. So the differentiating factor could be how ambitious people are, and how they’re able to adapt to the changes around them — AI will present plenty of opportunities because of the disruption that it’ll cause, and people who’re awake to the opportunities and are able to use AI tools could see their impact be increased manifold. On the other hand, people who passively accept the changes might not need to be as hardworking as before — AI could do much of the thinking and work for them. Certain sections of the people believe that there’s currently too much inequality in the world — if Cowen’s predictions are correct, it could end up being exacerbated manifold in the coming years.