Indian households have always been a part of discussions regarding the deciding part of an individual’s career. “Get an engineering degree, scope hai!” Having any other degree is often looked down upon citing that the market doesn’t seem that great. But oh well, the tables have turned.
In an interview with Recode Decode podcast host Kara Swisher, Billionaire Mark Cuban suggests that as AI advances, the value of Computer Science degrees may diminish.
As AI takes over basic coding jobs, Cuban highlights the growing significance of creativity in the face of AI’s increasing sophistication. It is worth noting that Computer Science currently stands as the highest-paid college major, with a median base salary of $70,000, according to Glassdoor.
“Twenty years from now, if you are a coder, you might be out of a job. As it’s just math, and so, whatever we’re defining the AI to do, someone’s got to know the topic,” says the billionaire.
He added more, “If you’re doing an AI to emulate Shakespeare, somebody better know Shakespeare. The coding major who graduates this year probably has better short-term opportunities than the liberal arts major that’s a Shakespeare expert. But long term, it’s like people who learned COBOL or Fortran and thought that was the future and they were going to be covered forever.”
Here’s a brownie point: According to Cuban, in the future, the advantages offered by a degree in the humanities may surpass those of a Computer Science degree.
“Creativity, collaboration, communication skills: Those things are super important and are going to be the difference between make or break,” he said. “In an AI world, you have to be knowledgeable about something, right?”
According to Mark Cuban, in the future, highly skilled workers will take charge of determining the goals and anticipating potential issues of neural networks. Conversely, low-skilled workers will be responsible for labelling data used to train AI, similar to the role of a warehouse worker organising materials.