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Should i drop uni, because of AI?
>Recently, i've read ai-2027.com and even before that, i was pretty worried about my future. Been considering Yudkowsky's stance, prediction markets on the issue, etc.
>i'm 19, come from an "upper–middle^+" economy EU country, 1st year BSc maths student, planned to do sth with finance or data analysis(maybe masters) after but in the light of the recent ai progress, I now view it as a dead end.
'cause by the time I graduate (~mid/late 2027) i bet there'll be an agi doing my "brain work" faster, better, and cheaper.
>will try to quickly obtain some blue-collar job qualifications, that (for now) seem to not be in the "in-risk-of-ai-replacement" jobs. + many of them seem to have not-so-bad salaries in EU particularly
>maybe emigrate inside EU for a better pay and to be able to legally marry my partner
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I’m not a top student, haven’t done IMO, which makes me feel less ambitious about CVs and internships as I didn’t actively seek experience in finance this year or before. So i don’t see a clear path into fin-/tech without qualifications right now.
So maybe working ~not-complex job, enjoying life(traveling, partying, doing my human things, being with the partner etc) during the next 2-3 years, before a potential civilizational collapse(or trying to get somewhere, where UBI is more likely) will be a better thing than missing out on social life and generally not-so-enjoying my pretty *hard* studies, with a not so hypothetical potential to just waste those years..
I feel for the position you’re in - I wish I had more that is useful to say. I also worry about future career prospects, what a world looks like where people can’t find work, etc. I think it’s really understandable to be feeling concerned
If I were in your position, I’d try to separate out “Should I go into something like a trade?” from “And if so, should I leave college now?” If you think you’d enjoy a trade, that does strike me as a reasonable career to choose (which might or might not mean leaving college). At least in the US there’s pretty good money to be made by being a small business owner of a reliable trade service, or so is my impression. Note that this is different of course than being new to the trade and reasonably might take a while to transition over (not sure exactly how long), but many trades are undersupplied even at a worker level (again in the US)
I think there’s a broader question to consider here, which is “what are your values/goals for life”, both professionally and personally. If your preferred lens were social impact, that might look different than if you’re eg just trying to live a happy enough, stable enough life with the people you love. I don’t have great advice here, but I wonder if you’ve looked over resources like 80,000 Hours in terms of thinking about career choice?
I lived for a while in a failing country with high unemployment. The businesses and jobs that pay well become saturated very quickly. People are less likely to spend money and often delay purchasing new stuff or maintaining their homes. Many jobs exist because we dont have time to do them ourselves, and a significant number of these jobs will just vanish. It is really hard to prepare for a high unemployment rate society.
or should i go to reddit with those type of questions and LW is generally not the place to talk about life situations?
Here is a fine place if you're just making a shortform.
I think it's good for the soul to study, learn, grow, and the time current society gives you to do it at university is pretty great if you make use of it, but also it's possible to do that outside of uni. This is putting aside value for careers, because indeed, with AI is hard to say.
But being 19 (or whatever age really), the frame I'd give is think about where you'll develop most. From a practical standpoint, I'd spend a lot of time trying to do valuable things together with AI. Eventually AI won't need us, but in the meantime symbiosis seems like a guess as how to still generate economic value.
Seconding this. Use the AI to accelerate your learning, and learn to use the AI to solve problems.
although i think here is fine, in addition you can try the SSC subreddit.
i know we are not all in a position to do this, but maybe if you don't focus too solely on uni as being for your career interests, but also as a way of growing, learning about things you intrinsically enjoy, and enjoying yourself, the conflict will dissolve.
doing this is a decent all-purpose strategy for thriving long-term in life under most AI outcomes (other than, you know, being dead). (If AI turns out to be a flop, great. If AI turns out mid-strength and requiring human symbiosis, qualitative expertise and passion will be at a premium. If AI turns out to replace al human economic value, hopefully you learned something about how to authentically enjoy your life.)
Ultimately you have to make a bet on your guesses of reality. If your modal guess is civilizational collapse in 2-3 years, skipping uni is hardly a disproportionate action, but at the same time it's not going to win you much either. Personally I'd leave the uni-or-not decision to the plausible worlds where the choice matters more, and look for some higher leverage change you can make for the rest.
This isn't directly answering the question of "should I drop university", but here's something that I wrote to another young person who was asking me what I'd study if I was young and in the beginning of my studies now (machine translated from Finnish in case you wonder why it doesn't sound like my usual voice):
I'd probably aim to study something that genuinely interests me, feels meaningful right away, and could potentially provide a livelihood in the future. A program combining psychology and computer science would still align well with my interests. This time around, I'd try to include more mathematics and statistics coursework, as I've often wished I understood them better for interpreting research papers. These are subjects I've found particularly challenging to learn independently.
Of course, in the future we might be able to ask AI to explain everything, but explanations are more effective when you have solid foundational knowledge to build upon. My main goal would be to enjoy my studies and feel like I'm learning interesting material that's not only fascinating but also broadly applicable and useful long-term. Computer science, psychology, math, and statistics have proven to be exactly that kind of knowledge so far. Even if AI eventually makes these skills less relevant professionally, I'd still have developed my thinking in valuable ways through studying them.
Adding a contrary stance to the other comments comments, I think there is a lot of merit to not keeping on with university, but only if you can find an opportunity you are happy with. Your post seems to imply the alternative to university is hedonism, and if that's what you want then you should go for it, but I don't feel that is the only other option. You may also find it harder to enjoy yourself if you feel you are forced into that choice it out of a fear of ruin.
Hi, I actually did drop uni because of AI, and I would suggest no, don't do it.[1]
If you wanted to drop university anyways (for reasons other than AI), go ahead. You have the least sunken costs in the first year.
AI-2027 is one out of many predictions, and the actual timeline may be much faster or much slower. Given that you prioritize your personal wellbeing, you should remain prepared for a slow timeline. By the time AGI can automate all "brain work," it might also automate physical work (by having unqualified humans wear AR goggles)? It's all so hard to predict.
You should consider options in between doing nothing and dropping out. A lot of universities allow you to take a break and go travelling and come back later.
First year university is a good opportunity to switch to a different specialization without dropping out. People do it all the time. (I'm not sure if this is true in your country)
You might pick a specialization you enjoy more, and is less likely to be automated. Or you can try computer science (or whatever is closest to AI alignment) if you are interested in that.
Most universities have these advisors who sit all day waiting for students to chat with about their future plans and career. They know these options better than I do.
The last thing we want, is people dropping out of university because of ai-2027.com, later regretting it when the prediction turns out wrong, and then becoming another scandal proving how cult-like we are :/
I didn't regret dropping out, but that's because I didn't drop out with the goal of improving my own life. Also, I already got my BSc and dropped out of my MSc.
Technically the point of going to college is to help you thrive in the rest of your life after college. If you believe in AI 2027, the most important thing for the rest of your life is for AI to be developed responsibly. So, maybe work on that instead of college?
I think the EU could actually be good place to protest for an AI pause. Because the EU doesn't have national AI ambitions, and the EU is increasingly skeptical of the US, it seems to me that a bit of protesting could do a lot to raise awareness of the reckless path that the US is taking. That, in turn, could motivate the EU to apply leverage via ASML, sanctions, etc.
The only thing I'm worried about is that EU criticism of the US could create anti-EU polarization among the GOP in the US, which motivates them to be more reckless on AI. This question seems worth a lot more study.