"Learn a Trade!" response to AI fears [View all]

I keep hearing this over and over whenever AI comes up.

But then I got to thinking what this would mean. If millions of Americans start learning trades, what would that do to the trades? Wouldn't that create a race to the bottom for wages? I mean, it's not like all the sudden there will be a ton more work for tradespeople to do, the opposite would probably happen if there is widespread job losses.

I was at my local bar last week and this question came up, and all these blue collar people just said, "learn a trade, don't go to college, college jobs will be replaced." I am still of the mind that college graduates will make $1M-$2M more over their careers than non college graduates. Is that wrong? Will we still not need people with degrees in health care, in business, educators, therapists, the law, research, engineering, design etc. etc? The bartender was telling me that her son is being told by college advisors to not even bother, there's no hope. Not sure if that last bit is true, but the fact that people no longer think you should go to college is alarming to me.

It just seems to me that we're giving up and getting middle class people to no longer consider college and that's going to be disastrous. Sure, you need to be more careful about what major you pick now, but you're going to be much better off with a degree than without one no matter how many jobs AI replaces IMO.