AI will change the type of expertise we value

One big change that AI will cause: a shift in what we consider expertise.

Traditionally we haven’t put much value in deep understanding of a subject or how something works, we’ve only cared about making it work.

AI is going to change that for the simple reason that AI can now do much of the execution for us.

AI is going to move us to a world where we value deep understanding of a subject over the ability to perform the actions.

This is because we will need people who have the deep conceptual understanding so that they are telling the AI to do the correct thing.

It’s like how in school we’re not taught math, we’re taught calculation.

We solve equations as though we are the calculator, not the mathematician who comes up with the reason it’s important to do that calculation.

The simple fact was that the 6th grader was correct when they complained: “why would I ever need to know this, in real life I have a calculator on my phone”.

But before calculators, that sort of rote memorization and ability to do calculations was necessary before you could learn higher math.

That stopped being the case long ago, but the education system still hasn’t caught up.

Likewise, a lot of white-collar-job tasks are now do-able with AI.

Knowing how to perform those tasks is no longer a requirement for operating at the next level of abstraction.