GenAI job seekers: Beware
Be wary of career fads built on knee-jerk assumptions about how AI will take over the business world. Companies need top expertise now, and are willing to pay for it; but what happens when companies reach their genAI goals? Are they going to keep paying you a pretty penny in perpetuity? Or will they look for a way out when the urgent need is no longer so urgent?
AI is on a fast track, but hype and immaturity could derail it. It’s human nature to amp up the outlook of emerging technologies and fast-moving tech trends. A lot of things are being predicted right now about where AI will take us. Hint: some of them won’t be true.
“Historically, academia was at the heart of breakthroughs in machine learning models, with universities and research institutions leading the charge,” Neil C. Hughes writes in Techopedia. In recent years, the tech industry has taken over the AI innovation lead. One reason for that: academic institutions can’t afford the price of admission for hardware. This discrepancy results in a significant skills gap, in which competencies taught through standard educational methodologies fall short of the industry’s current requirements for AI technology, Hughes adds.
The upshot: many of our teaching institutions can’t deliver the pertinent in-depth training needed by software engineering students and those looking to upskill with genAI.
For now, the nuances of building and managing LLMs are known to only a small fraction of the workforce; ultimately, companies need to rethink and reconsider how to get much better at upskilling and training their employees for the roles that need filling in a genAI world.
Closing the AI skills gap
To some extent, chasing the small number of experienced genAI experts is a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. AI is a huge wave of disruption that will transform many aspects of business globally. According to research by IBM, executives estimate that 40% of their workforces will need to reskill over the next three years as a result of implementing AI. This is the chief challenge businesses need to focus on.
