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When I was in college, the Great Recession was unfolding, and it seemed like I had made a big mistake. With the economy crumbling and job prospects going with it, I had selected as my majors … journalism and sociology. Even the professors joked about our inevitable unemployment. Meanwhile, a close friend had switched majors and started to take computer-science classes—there would obviously be opportunities there.
当我上大学时，大萧条正在展开，似乎我犯了一个大错误。随着经济崩溃和工作前景的发展，我选择了我的专业……新闻学和社会学。甚至教授也开玩笑说我们不可避免的失业率。同时，一位密友切换了专业，并开始参加计算机科学课程 - 显然会有机会。
But that conventional wisdom is starting to change. As my colleague Rose Horowitch writes in an article for The Atlantic, entry-level tech jobs are beginning to fade away, in part because of new technology itself: AI is able to do many tasks that previously required a person. “Artificial intelligence has proved to be even more valuable as a writer of computer code than as a writer of words,” Rose writes. “This means it is ideally suited to replacing the very type of person who built it. A recent Pew study found that Americans think software engineers will be most affected by generative AI. Many young people aren’t waiting to find out whether that’s true.”
但是这种传统的智慧开始改变。正如我的同事罗斯·霍洛维奇（Rose Horowitch）在《大西洋》的一篇文章中写的那样，入门级技术工作开始消失，部分原因是新技术本身：AI能够完成许多以前需要一个人的任务。罗斯写道：“事实证明，作为计算机代码的作者而言，人工智能比作为单词的作者更有价值。”“这意味着它非常适合取代建造它的人。最近的一项研究发现，美国人认为软件工程师会受到生成AI的影响。许多年轻人不在等待找出这是否真的。”
I spoke with Rose about how AI is affecting college students and the job market—and what the future may hold.
我与Rose谈了AI如何影响大学生和就业市场，以及未来可能会有什么。
This interview has been edited and condensed.
这次采访已被编辑和凝结。
Damon Beres: What do we actually know about how AI is disrupting the market for comp-sci majors?
达蒙·贝雷斯（Damon Beres）：我们实际上知道AI如何破坏Comp-SCI专业的市场？
Rose Horowitch: There are a lot of tech executives coming out and saying that AI is replacing some of their coders, and that they just don’t need as many entry-level employees. I spoke with an economics professor at Harvard, David Deming, who said that may be a convenient talking point—nobody wants to say We didn’t hit our sales targets, so we have to lay people off. What we can guess is that the technology is actually making senior engineers more productive; therefore they need fewer entry-level employees. It’s also one more piece of uncertainty that these tech companies are dealing with—in addition to tariffs and high interest rates—that may lead them to put off hiring.
罗斯·霍洛维奇（Rose Horowitch）：有很多科技高管出来，说AI正在取代他们的一些编码人员，而他们只是不需要那么多的入门级员工。我与哈佛大学的一位经济学教授戴维·戴明（David Deming）进行了交谈，他说这可能是一个方便的话题 - 没人想说我们没有达到我们的销售目标，因此我们必须裁员。我们可以猜到的是，这项技术实际上使高级工程师的生产力更高。因此，他们需要更少的入门级员工。这些科技公司还应对这是一个不确定性（除了关税和高利率），这可能会导致他们推迟招聘。
Damon: Tech companies do have a vested interest in promoting AI as such a powerful tool that it could do the work of a person, or multiple people. Microsoft recently laid thousands of people off, as you write in your article, and the company also said that AI writes or helps write 25 percent of their code—that’s a helpful narrative for Microsoft, because Microsoft sells AI tools.
达蒙（Damon）：科技公司确实对促进AI的既得利益是一种强大的工具，以至于它可以完成一个人或多个人的工作。Microsoft最近在您的文章中写下了成千上万的人，该公司还表示，AI撰写或帮助编写25％的代码 - 这对Microsoft来说是一个有用的叙述，因为Microsoft出售AI工具。
At the same time, it does feel pretty clear to me that many different industries are dealing with the same issues. I’ve spoken about generative AI replacing entry-level work with prominent lawyers, journalists, people who work in tech—the worry feels real to me.
同时，对我来说，许多不同的行业正在处理相同的问题，这确实很清楚。我谈到了与著名的律师，记者，技术工作的人一起代替入门级作品的生成性AI，这对我来说是真实的。
Rose: I spoke with Molly Kinder, a Brookings Institution fellow who studies how AI affects the economy, and she said that she’s worried that the bottom rung of the career ladder across industries is breaking apart. If you’re writing a book, you may not need to hire a research assistant if you can use AI. It’s obviously not going to be perfectly accurate, and it couldn’t write the book for you, but it could make you more productive.
罗斯：我与研究AI如何影响经济的布鲁金斯机构研究员莫莉·金德（Molly Kinder）进行了交谈，她说她担心整个行业的职业阶梯的最低点正在崩溃。如果您正在写书，则如果您可以使用AI，则可能不需要聘请研究助理。显然，它不会完全准确，也无法为您写这本书，但它可能会使您更有生产力。
Her concern, which I share, is that you still need people to get trained and then ascend at a company. The unemployment rate for young college graduates is already unusually high, and this may lead to more problems down the line that we can’t even foresee. These early jobs are like apprenticeships: You’re learning skills that you don’t get in school. If you skip that, it’s cheaper for the company in the short term, but what happens to white-collar work down the line?
我分享的她的关注是，您仍然需要人们接受培训，然后在公司上升。年轻大学毕业生的失业率已经异常高，这可能会导致更多的问题我们甚至无法预见。这些早期的工作就像学徒一样：您正在学习无法上学的技能。如果您跳过这一点，那么短期内的公司便宜，但是白领工作会发生什么呢？
Damon: How are the schools themselves thinking about this reality—that they have students in their senior year facing a completely different prospect for their future than when they entered school four years ago?
达蒙（Damon）：学校本身如何思考这一现实 - 他们在大四的年龄与四年前进入学校的前景完全不同的前景面临的前景完全不同？
Rose: They’re responding by figuring out how to produce graduates that are prepared to use AI tools in their work and be competitive applicants. The challenge is that the technology is changing so quickly—you need to teach students about what’s relevant professionally while also teaching the fundamental skills, so that they’re not just reliant on the machines.
罗斯：他们正在做出回应，弄清楚如何培养准备在工作中使用AI工具并成为竞争申请者的毕业生。面临的挑战是，该技术发生了如此迅速的变化 - 您需要向学生传授专业知识的知识，同时还要教授基本技能，以便它们不仅依赖机器。
Damon: Your article makes this point that students should be focused less on learning a particular skill and more on studying something that’s durable for the long term. Do you think students really will shift what they’re studying? Will the purpose of higher education itself change somehow?
达蒙（Damon）：您的文章表明，学生应该减少学习特定技能，而不是长期学习耐用的东西。您认为学生真的会改变他们正在学习的东西吗？高等教育本身的目的会以某种方式改变吗？
Rose: It’s likely that we’ll see a decline in students studying computer science, and then, at some point, there will be too few job candidates, salaries will be pushed up, and more students will go in. But the most important thing that students can do—and it’s so counterintuitive—is to study things that will give you human skills and soft skills that will help you endure in any industry. Even without AI, jobs are going to change. The challenge is that, in times of crisis, people tend to choose something preprofessional, because it feels safer. That cognitive bias can be unhelpful.
罗斯：我们很可能会看到学习计算机科学的学生有所下降，然后，在某个时候，候选人的候选人很少，薪水将被推高，并且会有更多的学生进入。但是，学生可以做到的最重要的事情 - 而且这是如此的反直觉 - 是为了研究任何能够帮助您在任何行业中都能帮助您的技能和软技能的事情。即使没有AI，工作也会改变。面临的挑战是，在危机时期，人们倾向于选择专业专业的东西，因为它感觉更安全。这种认知偏见无济于事。
Damon: You cover higher education in general. You’re probably best known for the story you did about how elite college students can’t read books anymore, which feels related to this discussion for obvious reasons. I’m curious to know more about why you were interested in exploring this particular topic.
达蒙：您一般涵盖了高等教育。您可能以有关精英大学生如何无法阅读书籍的故事而闻名，这与这次讨论有关，出于明显的原因。我很想知道为什么您有兴趣探索这个特定的主题。
Rose: Higher ed, more than at any time in recent memory, is facing the question of what it is for. People are questioning the value of it much more than they did 10, 20 years ago. And so, these articles all fit into that theme: What is the value of higher ed, of getting an advanced degree?
罗斯：更高的ED，比最近记忆中任何时候都要面对它的目的。人们质疑它的价值比20年前的10年前的价值要多得多。因此，这些文章都符合该主题：高级ED的价值是什么？
The article about computer-science majors shows that this thing that everyone thought is a sure bet doesn’t seem to be. That reinforces why higher education needs to make the case for its value—how it teaches people to be more human, or what it’s like to live a productive life in a society.
有关计算机科学专业的文章表明，每个人都认为这是一个肯定的赌注似乎并非如此。这加强了为什么高等教育需要为其价值提出案例 - 它如何教会人们成为更人性化的人，或者在社会中过上富有成效的生活的感觉。
Damon: There are so many crisis points in American higher education right now. AI is one of them. Your article about reading suggested a problem that may have emerged from other digital technologies. Obviously there have been issues stemming from the Trump administration. There was the Claudine Gay scandal. This is all in the past year or two. How do you sum it all up?
达蒙（Damon）：美国高等教育目前有很多危机点。AI是其中之一。您有关阅读的文章提出了可能从其他数字技术出现的问题。显然，特朗普政府出现了问题。有克劳丁同性恋丑闻。这是过去一两年中的全部。您如何总结一下？
Rose: Most people are starting to realize that the status quo is not going to work. There’s declining trust in education, particularly from Republicans. A substantial portion of the country doesn’t think higher ed serves the nation. The fact is that at many universities, academic standards have declined so much. Rigor has declined. Things cannot go on as they once did. What comes next, and who’s going to chart that course? The higher-education leaders I speak with, at least, are trying to answer that question themselves so that it doesn’t get defined by external forces like the Trump administration.
罗斯：大多数人开始意识到现状无法正常工作。人们对教育的信任下降，尤其是共和党人。该国的很大一部分不认为高级ED为国家服务。事实是，在许多大学中，学术标准下降了很多。严谨已下降。事情不能像他们以前那样继续前进。接下来会发生什么，谁将绘制该课程？我至少与我交谈的高等教育领导人正在试图自己回答这个问题，以免像特朗普政府这样的外部力量定义。
