Ask Slashdot: Future-Proof Jobs?

An anonymous reader writes: My niece, who is graduating from high school, has asked me for some career advice. Since I work in data processing, my first thought was to recommend a degree course in computer science or computer engineering. However, after reading books by Jeremy Rifkin (The Third Industrial Revolution) and Ray Kurzweil (How to Create a Mind), I now wonder whether a career in information technology is actually better than, say, becoming a lawyer or a construction worker. While the two authors differ in their political persuasions (Rifkin is a Green leftist and Kurzweil is a Libertarian transhumanist), both foresee an increasingly automated future where most of humanity would become either jobless or underemployed by the middle of the century. While robots take over the production of consumer hardware, Big Data algorithms like the ones used by Google and IBM appear to be displacing even white collar tech workers. How long before the only ones left on the payroll are the few "rockstar" programmers and administrators needed to maintain the system? Besides politics and drug dealing, what jobs are really future-proof? Would it be better if my niece took a course in the Arts, since creativity is looking to be one of humanity's final frontiers against the inevitable Rise of the Machines?

hookers

[umghhh]

are not very easy to offshore and demand is not going away either.

Stripper!

[Jim Sadler]

Exotic dancers will probably do well over the next century or so and call girls can do well if they are really sharp looking and smart enough to handle the trade. Very few jobs will exist for humans in any area of work much sooner than most people think. Obviously society will have to pay people not to work. Freedom might become a much more real concept when people are freed from monetary demands. The very notion of concepts such as socialism, communism and capitalism will become quaint and obsolete concepts. The very basic fact that all people need to confront is that "TECHNOLOGY IS DESIGNED TO ELIMINATE HUMAN EFFORT". We are at the toggle point at which technology may actually pay off for humanity. So far the advance of technology has caused as much pain as joy.

Re:Plumber

[Patent Lover]

Unfortunately computers are not replacing lawyers. It's hard to program a machine based on logic to produce complete bullshit.