I’m kind of sick of being a dev. I hate AI with a passion.
I hate the hallucinations, I hate slop, I hate megacrops, I hate the environmental impacts, I hate the massive costs. I could go on but you get the picture.
At work I often times have to review vibe code slop from people who clock in 9 to 5 and don’t give a fuck (I respect that, I just wish your fucking code wasn’t slop)
I’m sick of it, I’m sick of hearing about AI tooling or new models or bro agentic actions bro based on your documentation bro.
I want to switch careers, so which career is not ruined by AI?
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I work a physical/tactile job in healthcare. My job won’t be in danger until robotics dramatically advance and cheapen. AI could conceptually do my job, but the physicality is missing. A lot of healthcare careers are this way. Not all of them are though, so be wise in your choice!
There is the (more difficult) option of finding a dev job for an older tech conservative company. My workplace has just barely rolled out access to copilot chat. Our devs are still doing things without the slop.
Look at the more heavily regulated business sectors, they tend to be more resistant to tech fads.
Construction
Any careers that involve blagging and bullshitting your way through life on the works of others. In fact it’s actually enhanced by AI.
So, politics and upper management
Anything that’s based on physical work or human contact. Trades, medical/social work, psychology, emergency workers…
Psychology? A lot of folks are already using ai as a virtual therapist
That is the equivalent of saying “we don’t need doctors since we can put bandaids on wounds”
Psychology is about a lot more that what LLMs can do
so is art or even programming for that matter, but here we are.
Doesn’t mean psychology can’t be ruined by AI anyway.
Correct, we don’t need Doctors for every scrape in the exact same way that I can explain a social situation to a LLM and it can help by referencing back to published literature on that particular topic, suggesting clear guidelines as to how to move forward. Sure there are also broken arms and cancer exists, but the base level (and moving up the chain) is absolutely coming for Psych work.
Horticulture is nice. You get most of the benefits of a trade and honest manual work (outside of union protections in most cases), but it’s also a deeply interdisciplinary science that lets you impact the world in a lot of different ways while forcing you to touch and understand grass. With the same garden I get to do creative, intellectual, manual, and political work with really interesting spatiotemporal angles. There’s public education and anthropology and ecological utility in choosing one plant over another based on analysing the site across all the physical sciences, then lifting heavy rocks to achieve something that benefits my neighbours and wildlife pets. Most of my coworkers are natural scientists of some kind so we spend all day in the sun having interesting conversations about the landscape and urbanism.
I’m in tech but in the non-profit sector. For what we do, there is virtually no use case for ai. I basically just make sure everything runs properly. No one is expecting me to turn out code that will turn into profits. I’m not rolling in the dough like a lot of tech workers, but im not micromanaged, I get to make all the decisions, and im not working for an evil corporation. So I suggest looking at non profits. They are typically run by people who know very little about tech. You’ll be an easy hire if your resume is as good as it sounds.
Just be careful of people who volunteer at non profits. Most will be good, but since they’re not getting paid, their motivation may be strongly ego driven. That can be problematic.
I feel ya. But the pendulum will probably swing back the other way soon and we’ll have a ton of companies hiring to undo/replace slop code. That’s how it has been for previous coding fads, anyway.
I’m so tired of my skill and income being beholden to the whims of bullshit artists though.
Firefighter. Willing to bet AI won’t touch it anytime soon.
I was an EMT going to school for cyber security. I had done all my gen eds and was just starting the actual computer classes when I realized how this all was going to go and decided that the money wasn’t worth dealing with the tech world and the risk of constant layoffs. Got my Advanced EMT, dropped out of college, and am going to be going back to school to get my paramedic certs. Pay is not nearly as good as a career in tech and the hours are insane, but if you have a pulse and a cert you’ll always be able to find a job somewhere (and if it gets to the point that you can’t, everyone else has already been fucked over).
Speaking of which… when we get there with our pitchforks and burn down the data centers, could you give us a 20 minutes lead?
I’m picking up furniture making. Handcrafted furniture will always be needed
What? Ikea wrecked that a long time ago. Not that you can’t make a living but the demand isn’t high in any way whatsoever. Hand crafted furniture has become a luxury.
Hand crafted furniture has become a luxury
So you make more money selling them. I see no issues.
The issue is in finding buyers who have enough money to spend on those luxury goods.
I feel like luxury goods are harder to get into in terms of career change and it’s a bit off to characterize them as always needed.
No issues, just become a master craftsmen and compete with other master craftsmen. Easy.
Bring back guilds.
The market for high quality furniture never went away. And if we enter a global depression, a local furniture maker will again be a necessity
If we enter a depression, people will have less money to spend on luxuries. I just think the percentage of people buying hand made furniture is kind of low. I think most people “buy” them from friends and family doing it as a semi-hobby, or are rich, at least in my experience.
Not trying to be overly critical, just saying it’s not easy.
As a side note, I’ve noticed no one makes nice wooden informational kiosks with integrated touch screen even though orgs like museums would likely buy them over plastic and metal ones. Just an idea if you were looking for a niche product.
I said necessity, not luxury… If we enter a global depression, there won’t be cheap IKEA furniture anymore
IKEA made that a niche market though.
First thing you do is realize that AI ain’t as great as they want you to believe. Physical work is probably the best way to avoid AI completely, but eventually the hype will die down, so if you still want to work in IT, maybe something like a data technician or IT support?
Become a dentist
Wish I could tell ya. Im like just old enough that changing careers is rather monuental since I don’t really have time enough to get established. Something has to eventually give with the ai. either it goes away which I doubt or we need to restructure our societies.
I feel this. I relatively recently pivoted into dev work for my career. I really enjoy it because we haven’t forced AI into our workflows… Yet. We had a couple devs run an experiment to see who could finish an app first, where one generated as much as they could and another did it all manually. It wasn’t even close. The manual job was faster to completion and good.
Unfortunately for me, my time is being split and I’ve been tasked to upskill on all of the different automation and AI tools that we have, because dumbass VPs drank the Kool aid, bought shit, and didn’t hire experience to configure and run those tools. I’ve been reading so much garbage trying to master copilot studio, and honestly it’s the worst product I’ve ever had to work with. I’m going to be having a heart to heart with my manager in the near future, and if I’m still stuck on the AI shit, I’m bouncing. I’ll use what time I have to bolster my dev skills and leaving. If I can’t find a dev job, it looks like I’ll be pivoting my career again, and I’ve been thinking something like electrician. Honest work, not has hard on the body as say construction, and I feel it could still be mentally engaging compared to some other trades.
God speed on your future endeavors. Fuck AI.
a career in poisoning AI
See if Haven Social are hiring?
Alas, they’re not paying for that. They’re not paying for what they need to achieve their goals either.
would be nice if i can make a living out of doing that lol
