An AI Tells Me About Job Prospects In Computer Science
There’s a lot of back and forth going on about the relationship between the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and future jobs for Computer Science majors. So, I decided to ask an AI to tell which areas within computer science might have the best job prospects. Claude told me tabout five disciplines Cybersecurity, Quantum Computing, Network Systems, Robotics and Co-Design.
That last one, Co-Design, was something that I knew nothing about.
So, I asked Claude to elaborate and make a course plan. As Claude said, co-design is “at the intersection of chip architecture, embedded systems, and machine learning.” In non-technical terms, you learn about hardware and software. That’s a blend of computer science and engineering. There’s a lot of math to master, too. Not everyone who is interested in computer science wants to be an engineer or loves math. But having a skill set across disciplines can certainly help drive a career path.
This took me to a question: which jobs that are targeted to a computer science major or minor are most and least likely to be lost to an AI tool?
Tufts University’s Digital Planet might have some of the answers to my question. There’s a lot of information to take in. But you ight want to drop down to the bottom of the page. Check out this table labeled: High-Skill, Knowledge-Intensive Jobs Show Greater Potential for AI Task Complementarity.
There are 27 web pages here. But you can see the percentage of work for each occupation that is likely to augmented by AI. as you click to each one For computer programmers and web designers, not usually engineers, AI is likely to augment 33 percent of the work. For systems analysts, some who might be engineers, it’s 27 percent. Most of the jobs listed on the first page deal with collecting, ordering and interpreting data. An Ai could help with at least a fifth of the work. Starting on page 5 this table reports that an AI will augment less than 10% of the work. There are no computer programming or computer engineering jobs on this page. But there are some where an AI can be used for modeling decision making options.
All this makes me wonder: if programming is what someone loves, what would they love to program?
This can be a tricky decision. Some areas involving programming within the business world have been outsourced for a long time, including market research and human resource information systems, among others. So can routine accounting operations. I’ve noticed others, such as testing of ads on social media channels, that can be outsourced as well. I’m curious–when someone doesn’t want to be an engineer, would business or content knowledge be more important, and the programming a tool to test ideas?
Other disciplines such as user experience design, quantitative finance and supply chain management can be quite challenging for the right person who wants to develop proprietary formulas for success. A student who is adept in economics with statistics or data science can be more valuable than a programmer. Combining computer science with cognitive psychology might give someone a leg up to develop a new generation of AL tools in partnership with subject area experts in businsss or product development.
So, what are my take aways from my chat with an AI?
Computer science can be about engineering and as well as or programming.
If you’re in high school do you envision yourself building something, or coding someone else’s idea? Think about the problems that you want to solve. Are they hardware, software or systems problems. or something else outside of improving a tool or a program?
Some might want to look at computer science as a second field, with a primary focus where programming is a tool to do the job versus the program being the job.
Finance is one area. So are political polling and public policy analysis. So is supply chain management. There are many more. The AI and programs are tools to solve problems. That requires someone to understand the issues and learn the tool.
Your interest might impact your choice of college, depending on where the college places the computer science major.
Liberal arts colleges have all majors under one administration, These might be easier places to double major or carry multiple minors. Others have computer science within its own school, in their school of arts & sciences, or within a college of engineering. That affects your choice of classes ad well as second majors or multiple minors.
You might graduate college working in a different place than you expected.
I realize that college students might have chosen to study computer science within the thought of working for a company that offers high starting salaries as well as a sleek work environment. But some of those companies have also been outsourcing work for a long time, and those workers don’t receive the same benefits and wage scale. Claude showed me that AI either is a tool that needs to be updated or to be used as a tool to test ideas outside of computing. Those who have original ideas or are creative thinkers within their workplaces all have the best chances for career success.
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