MY DAUGHTER LEAVES for college in a few weeks, and there’s been an uptick in “for the rest of my life”-type conversations at our house. Since graduating from college, I have been a musician, a hotline operator, a collections specialist, an accountant, a project manager, a pastor, a consultant, and an executive in a faith-based social justice nonprofit. And I have a bachelor’s degree in geology. It rocks. My career path has been much more of a hiking trail with poor signage than a career ladder.
My daughter wants to study history and work in a museum, but she also wants to study theater and do lighting design for musicals. And she wants to be able to afford an apartment in a major metropolitan area, ideally New York City.
I’m not terribly excited to co-sign a lease for a 300-square-foot studio with rent higher than my mortgage. Generational wealth is not in her future, and she hasn’t shown interest in being a TikTok influencer. She’s going to have to get a job ... and it may not be her dream job. It may not even be a job that currently exists.
I don’t know what humans will be paid to do four years from now when she steps across the stage with her brand-new college diploma. “AI-proof” is an adjective we weren’t using when I got my call center job twenty-some years ago. HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the T-1000 from Terminator 2 were the only artificial intelligence on my radar, and they weren’t trying to creep in on my 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. call center shift.
Is “lighting designer” an AI-proof role? I can envision a Broadway stage with tiny sensors everywhere gathering data about hue, photon density, actor movements, and audience emotional responses then cross-referencing the script and making real-time lighting adjustments. The Academy Awards are saying they won’t give Oscars to AI. But Tony could go another direction. I can hear it now, “This year’s Tony for Best Lighting Design in a Play or Musical goes to Copilot.” Still, I want to believe there will always be a job for a kid dressed in all black with a haircut from their roommate and a deep love for bands you’ve never heard of to be there after the show, wrapping cables and putting the mic pack batteries on the charger.
This year’s Tony Award goes to: Copilot!
Museum curator and history expert feel risky too. A nice set of virtual reality goggles will take you there. Why travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when you can get virtual reality goggles from your library and load the tour? You could even set your avatar to wear Beyoncé’s Olivier Rousteing gown and $50 million diamond necklace from this year’s Met Gala. You’d look way fancier than the Chuck Taylors and “Virginia Is for Lovers” shirt you would have worn if you went in person. Claude’s happy to mine the internet to be your guide, saying things like, “To your left is Dali’s ‘The Accommodations of Desire.’ A recent Yelp review from Steven617 says, ‘I prefer Rembrandt’s lions.’”
Maybe I should nudge my daughter toward the family business: ministry. She’ll have to be careful in that space, too. Some pastors have moved from AI-proof, through AI-assisted, and on to AI-generated. All that extra time saved by having AI write sermons will allow pastors to send their avatars and note-taking apps to conferences on using AI more effectively to disciple their congregation. Soon enough, they’ll just ordain AI and skip the middleman.
The next time we have a “for the rest of my life” conversation, I’ll give my daughter the only rock-solid advice I’m qualified to give: A degree in geology is not helpful if you want to do anything other than be a geologist.
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