Welcome to Edition #23 of Ask Gorick Anything. This AMA is part of Gorick's Newsletter, where Harvard career advisor and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Gorick Ng shares what they don't teach you in school about how to succeed in your career.
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→ Read time: 5 min
ASK GORICK ANYTHING
“Will AI take my job?”
Have a career question? Ask me here.
Subscriber’s question:
“I’m worried that I won’t be able to get a job because of AI. Right now, I’m studying CS in school, which I chose because I thought it would get me a stable job. But I keep seeing layoffs at tech companies and fellow CS majors struggling to find jobs. Everybody keeps blaming AI. What should I do? And how worried should I be?”
— Daniela from Chicago, IL, USA
Gorick’s response:
Hi Daniela,
I love that you are asking this question while you are still in school because this will be the defining question of your generation. (Just look at the headlines I’ve pasted below.)
No one has a crystal ball—so anyone who tells you confidently that “the world will look like _______ in the future” is lying to you. But since careers are made from betting on a hypothesis, here’s my take:
What should you do? I believe that the most important skills you can build in the age of AI are the ability to decide (A) what to ask, (B) what to do, and (C) what to prioritize. It’s not about being better than AI, but about doing what AI either cannot do or that people don’t yet trust AI to do.
How worried should you be? It would be misleading of me to say “don’t worry.” At the same time, uncertainty around new technology in the labor market is nothing new. So don’t stress too much—you’re on the right track simply by asking this question!
Remember what I said a few weeks ago about how there are 3 types of jobs out there—deciding jobs, scoping jobs, and doing jobs?
In short, in a typical organization, the people at the top decide, the people in the middle scope, and the people at the bottom do.
The higher up you go, the more you become a decider. These are the types of roles that AI will likely have a harder time touching.
Meanwhile, the lower you are, the more likely you are to be a doer. Since doing is often about following someone else’s instructions, I suspect white-collar doing jobs will be the first to be taken over by AI. And given that many white-collar doing jobs are entry-level and filled by new graduates or students, AI is likely to hit young workers in corporate roles the hardest.
The result? Job cuts for those who currently hold the jobs, hiring freezes for new jobs, and unemployment for those who cannot keep up.
And, just this week, I spotted a series of headlines not just about AI taking jobs, but about how AI risks killing the entry-level job altogether.
If you’re wondering why, here’s a quick synopsis:
Consider how you and other students are likely already using AI.
Need to research a topic, brainstorm ideas, draft a document, proofread a text, or analyze a data set? You’ve got your pick of ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot, Gemini, Mistral, Perplexity, and more. In seconds, you’ve got in front of you what might have otherwise taken you hours (or even days) to get.
Now, consider this: when you ask AI a question like, “Was Nike really founded as a side hustle?” or “How many subscribers do the top 10 YouTube channels have?”, you’re doing what your manager would have asked you to figure out as an intern or entry-level employee.
Your manager had a question and didn’t have time to look for the answer themselves. So, they got you to hunt for the information, synthesize the findings, and bring it all together in a single coherent answer like “yes because…,” “no, but…,” “it depends on…,” or “the answer is X” that they can then use to make some sort of decision.
But here’s what’s cool for your manager (and the capitalist machine) and scary for you: If your manager could simply ask AI—and AI can do the job instantly without taking time, pausing for a bathroom break, or showing attitude—why would a manager ever ask you (let alone hire you)?
But it's not all doom and gloom like these headlines might imply.
Let’s go back to deciding, scoping, and doing—a framework I keep referencing because my take is that workers who get ahead in the age of artificial intelligence are those who can decide:
(A) what to ask
(B) what to do
(C) what to prioritize.
Diving into each skill…
(A) what to ask
I believe people who are great at deciding what to ask will increasingly be trusted to do the deciding work.
While others are dancing around vague or irrelevant questions, they will have already gotten the answer and moved on.
(B) what to do
I believe people who are great at deciding what to do will increasingly be trusted to do the scoping work.
While others are wasting time doing the wrong work or not doing it the right way, they will have already gotten the job done.
(C) what to prioritize
I believe people who are great at deciding what to prioritize (what to do next and what sources and pieces of information to trust) will increasingly be trusted to do both deciding work and scoping work.
While others are wasting time on things that don’t matter, they will have already shown results.
Note the word that I repeated in all three paragraphs: decide.
Decisions are what leaders do in organizations.
Decisions are also what few junior employees get to do today, but what all entry level workers will be increasingly expected to do (especially when the “easier” and more mundane parts of the job are already taken by our robot friends).
What does this mean for you?
Do what leaders do and step up—no matter what job you have.
For example…
Situation #1: Your manager asks for research or data.
What do you do?
Don’t: Just give them data (which AI could do—and do faster).
Do: Share your key takeaways.
The unspoken rule? Show that you have what it takes to ask the right questions.
Situation #2: Your manager asks for a certain deliverable.
What do you do?
Don’t: Just give them the deliverable (which AI could do—and do faster).
Do: Share your recommendations for next steps.
The unspoken rule? Show that you have what it takes to do the right work.
Situation #3: Your manager gives you more than one assignment (or no work at all).
What do you do?
Don’t: Just smile and nod.
Do: Propose next steps and a priority list.
The unspoken rule? Show that you have what it takes to prioritize the right information or work.
Remember: in today’s job market, you’re no longer just competing against your fellow interns or colleagues for a job or promotion. You’re also increasingly competing against AI—so keep reminding the higher-ups why you’re more valuable than AI could ever be.
See you Tuesday for our next story and unspoken rule,
Gorick
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