What will you become?

This is the most asked question. Especially in the teenage and college years. Everyone wants to know what will you become and this is also the question the most amount thinking is done by a student.

You would reply with something like engineer, teacher, doctor, pilot, accountant or something of this kind. But I feel this question is overrated. People give more than required importance to what will you become. Most of these people are not aware of the speed at which Artificial Intelligence is developing. In a few years it will be able to perform in almost all our dream professions while delivering 10x efficiency, not taking a weekend off and not taking salary. A computer feeds on electricity.

Your competetors are not people sitting in your classroom but a computer. Computer can learn and iterate faster than humans. So what you are working day in and day out to become can be taken away from you by a trained computer.

Feels bad, right? Believe me it would feel worse when your inbox is greeted with a laying off letter saying “The computer you work on is now capable to work on itself and doesn’t need you”.

What do you do now? How do you make sure such a thing never happens to you?

By focusing on the skills that AI won’t take over anytime soon. Then try and squire those skills. One such skill that I can think off is public speaking. I don’t think we a computer would replace Sandeep Maheshwari anytime soon.

Try and look for these kind of skills and acquire them to make your future secure.

Start focusing more “how you will become?” than “what you will become?”

Your values, interpersonal relations, skillset, flexibility will matter more than any other thing in this age of rapid change.

Don’t just run after 1 profession because that might well be taken up by AI.

Make yourself capable of more than a single profession by acquiring a varied skillset.

It was never sensible to put all your eggs in 1 basket.

-ChoubeySahab