Opportunity knocks, but doesn’t tell us what we will find behind a different door. We often pursue what we’ve always wanted—something hard to turn away from.
There are many possible vocations. Additionally, hobbies, vacations, romantic pursuits, and friendships compete for time. How about adding education instead of working or choosing to spend time with the kids? Trying to repair the world is another worthy avenue for your energy.
How shall we decide? Consider this:
Opportunity cost is “the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.” For example, we cannot profit from road B if road A consumed our time. The lost chance might be due to a poor decision, but the world’s speed of change and complexity also play a part.
Should we stay with lover A or pursue other relationships? The guidelines are not clear.
Choose a job, and A.I. might gobble it up in five or 10 years.
Decisions would be easier if we were better at affective forecasting—predicting how we will feel about our choices when we are older. As Kirkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
In our high-tech age, how many jobs can you adapt to in a lifetime?
Yuval Noah Harari, a historian who looks ahead, raises this question in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.
He indicates that we should not classify A.I. as a tool that mankind employs and empowers our species, similar to previous inventions like the printing press. Instead, he describes it as an agent that can consume and retain unimaginable amounts of information, make decisions independently, learn and change by itself, and create new ideas and things.
He predicts that A.I. will outperform homo sapiens in communicating, analyzing, learning, and understanding how human emotions work. If this is not unsettling enough, he says A.I. is in its infancy.
Harari suggests A.I. will take over some professions currently performed by humans. The process will not stop, but continue to take more unless governments choose to stop it.
Would such a circumstance require us and our children to transform ourselves into experts in several new fields during our working lives?
The repeated stressful changes will tax humanity’s emotional adaptability if Harari’s expectation is fulfilled.
In the meantime, we would be well-served if our vocational plans include a wider range of careers than have been customary in a single lifetime.
The one thing we can be sure of is that the decades ahead will be interesting in ways we could never have imagined.
Read Harari’s books and watch his many interviews on YouTube. He is a remarkable and provocative communicator who makes the complex easy to understand.
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The top photo is a Flamingo in Amboseli, Kenya, taken in November 2024 by Laura Hedien, with thanks for her kind permission to use it: Laura Hedien Official Website.
Beneath it is Composition VI, 1913 by Kandinsky. It is sourced from Wikiart.org/
My thoughts on AI vary. I’ve been using it for years to edit images. Some aspects are rather disconcerting.
Indeed, its features are interesting and its future uncertain, Laura. There is some evidence that it is undercutting mankind’s skill by making some things too easy. It also hallucinates (makes things up). I trust that it’s helpful to you. Its therapeutic skills are not ready for prime time, and it might become a substitute friend for some people. The ball is in the air. Thank you for sharing your experience.
We just rented a 2025 Ford Expedition. It drives itself on the interstates. Does lane changes also. People will forget how to drive and that’s a dangerous thing for some!
Yes, dangerous for sure!
I appreciate your thoughts, Dr. Stein – especially about “emotional adaptability” in the face of change. I cannot account for the cost, nor the incapacity that sometimes follows. I see it both in myself and others. A byproduct of rapid change, even when the technology has the appearance of desirability or improvement. Much to think about. Thank you. 💕
Indeed, Vicki. I am no fortune teller, but it is hard to imagine our current world slowing down soon. Harari also talks about how A.I. learns from us, as our children learn from what we do, not what we say. Moreover, there are already competing versions of A.I. Mark Zuckerberg appears to be pouring tons of money into his A.I. product to beat the other A.I. pioneers. Not a good start.
Thank you for bringing Harari forward, Dr. Stein. Much appreciated.
Scary stuff, Dr. Stein. Thanks for bringing Yuval Noah Harari to our attention. Will be checking him out shortly.
I am glad Harari caught your interest, Rosaliene. He is a man full of ideas and not without some optimism, IF humans learn to trust each other and don’t exemplify the darkest elements of mankind, in which case A.I. will learn unfortunate lessons from us.
Yet another existential threat for us to contend with 🙁
What a fascinating essay, Dr. Stein. I agree that Hurari is a gifted thinker and communicator and that we have a lot of adaptation ahead. Your note, “we would be well-served if our vocational plans include a wider range of careers than have been customary in a single lifetime.” Right! Thanks for this thoughtful handling of what lies ahead!
Thank you, Wynne. Harari believes that we still have time, but only if we can join together to limit the possible range of dangerous consequences of letting the AI creators compete against each other. Thus far, they seem to have little to no interest in collaboration. In one video I’ve seen, Harari finds it ironic that the world is preoccupied with “aliens” crossing our borders illegally, since the largest “alien” threat in his mind comes from AI agents (who have independent agency) who may undo us.
I’ve had to reinvent myself a few times in my work life. I started teaching art privately, but when students chose to study in universities instead of with private teachers, I had to look elsewhere for a job. I had taken introductory drafting classes in high-school, so my dad was able to convince his boss in an engineering company to take me on as a junior to start learning the trade. Drafting was switching from hand drawing to computer aided, and I kept missing out on the free classes companies were paying staff to attend, because my contracts would finish just as my name would come up on the list. Then the engineering industry took a nosedive, when a recession hit Quebec, due to wanting to separate from Canada. I once again had to switch. I decided to take some classes to learn computer software – Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Illustrator and Quark Xpress. I got work in a couple of teaching hospitals, working in the art department creating materials that research doctors would use to display their research from grants, and go to different overseas symposiums to share their work. When that work dried up I got contracts within the clothing manufacturing industry in Montreal, designing clothing. I got mental burnout from that after a few years and had to switch job types once again, so I started working as an administrative assistant since I knew the software backwards and forwards. I worked my way up to an executive assistant, but then jobs dried up in Montreal, once again due to the French Canadians. They had lost 2 referendums, and fifmgured the only way to get Quebec to become solely French was to push out the English speakers, so they passed laws making working there difficult and had anglophones take business level French tests, and require an 85% pass to be declared proficient. I had a French friend who had done high-school in French but had not gone to university, and she looked at the test her company was administering, and told me she wasn’t able to get the required passing grade. That makes the point that I realized I too needed to leave. Reinventing oneself is definitely stressful, but it is possible!
Remarkable, Tamara!. I don’t know whether what you did is possible for everyone. If a large part of the working population has to do what you did as a regular part of their life experience, do you think it would be socially disruptive? We may find out before long. Thank you for giving us something to think about.