What Are Our Kids Going to Do When They Grow Up?
Every stage of the funnel we followed now has a question mark over it.
What are our kids going to do when they grow up?
It's the most common question that surfaces in my social circles right now. And it's the one I ask myself the most whilst watching my seven year old grow up.
Most of my friends, myself included, followed the same funnel: Go to school. Pick a lane, a degree, double degree at best. Get a job.
Every stage of that funnel now has a question mark over it.
How many jobs are there going to be in the first place? Not in 10 years. In 5. In 2. Now.
The roles that exist when our kids enter the funnel are disappearing faster than new ones are being created, at least in information work.
Are kids armed with the right knowledge to even pick a lane? The industries that take 3-4 years just to get a degree in order to enter may be the most disrupted to begin with. There's enormous uncertainty about what these fields will even look like.
Consider software engineering. We know right now what's already happening to those roles. Is it not time to reevaluate before we throw 4 years and debt into something that may not work out?
Is the education system setting them up to make the right choices?
I spoke to a teacher recently who told me she sees two camps forming in schools. One is engaging with AI. The other isn't engaging with it at all.
That second camp concerns me, because whether we like it or not, AI is reshaping how a significant portion of knowledge work operates.
I think it's ironic that people say AI will stop people thinking for themselves.
If I'm honest with myself, did I really think for myself after school? I went into university and hoped for the best. I was lucky.
How many people actually thought for themselves about what to study and why? How many people chose not to do university altogether, because they genuinely evaluated their options rather than just following the path?
The funnel did the thinking for us. AI isn't creating a new problem. It's exposing one that was always there.
We grow up being told what to do. Go here, study this, become that. The whole system is built around assigning people roles.
But what happens when those roles stop existing? We're telling kids to do stuff that, first of all, they're not even thinking for themselves about.
Maybe what's actually needed isn't a better version of the same funnel. Maybe it's something fundamentally different. Kids who can think for themselves about what problems are worth solving, rather than waiting to be assigned a lane.
I don't have the answer, but I'm deeply concerned, and I'm curious to hear from others already with older kids what they're seeing.
What are you observing with your kids? What are you telling them? Is anyone seeing schools that are actually getting ahead of this?