(This is a mega-expanded version of a stubsack comment: https://awful.systems/comment/8327535)
Multiple times before on awful.systems, I’ve claimed the AI bubble would provide the humanities some degree of begrudging respect, at the expense of STEM’s public image taking a nosedive.
In the process of writing this mini-essay, its become clear that I was predicting humanities would cannibalise tech’s public image, rather than STEM’s - I had just failed to recognise tech had made itself utterly synonymous with STEM up until now.
Still, I’ve made this claim, I might as well try to back it up.
High Paying, No More?
One of the major things propping up tech/STEM's public image is the notion that its higher-paying than a humanities degree - that “learning to code” will earn you a high-paying job and financial stability, whilst taking any kind of “useless” arts degree will end with you working some form of low-wage employment (e.g. as a barista).
Between the complete clusterfuck that is the job market, the Trump administration’s war on American science, the use of AI to kill jobs left and right (whilst enshittifying what remains) and the ongoing layoffs ravaging the entire tech industry, the idea that any degree will earn you a stable job has been pretty thoroughly undermined.
And with coding getting the brunt of all of this, thanks to an oversaturated market and the AI bubble hitting tech particularly hard, any notion of tech being an easy road to riches is pretty much dead and buried.
Not Lookin’ So Smart
Another thing propping up tech/STEM’s image was the view of it being more “logical/rational” than the humanities - that it dealt with “objective” matters, compared to the highly-subjective humanities, that it was “apolitical” compared to the deeply-political humanities, that kinda stuff.
On that front, the AI bubble has become tech’s equivalent to the Sokal hoax, deeply undermining any and all notions of rationality tech had built up over the past few decades.
Artistically-speaking, the large-scale art theft committed to create gen-AI, the vapidity and soullessness of the AI slop it produces, the AI bros’ failure to recognise this soullessness (Fig. 1, Fig. 2) and their actions regarding the effects of gen-AI (defending open theft, mocking their victims, cultural vandalism, denigrating human work, etcetera) have deeply undermined tech’s ability to talk on matters of art, with the industry at large viewed as incapable of understanding art at best, and as being hostile to art and artists at worst.
On a more general front, AI’s failures of reasoning (formal and informal, comedic and horrific), plus the tech industry’s refusal to recognise or acknowledge these failures (instead relentlessly hyping up AI’s supposed capabilities, making spurious claims about Incoming Superintelligence™ and doomsaying about how spicy autocomplete might kill us all), have put tech’s “rationality” into serious question, painting the industry at large as out-of-touch with reality and unconcerned with solving actual problems.
For the humanities generally, this bubble is going to make them look relatively grounded and reasonable by comparison, whilst for the arts specifically, they’ll likely be able to point to the slop-nami when their usefulness is questioned.
(Reports of AI usage causing metaphorical and literal brainrot likely aren’t helping, either, as they provide the public an obvious explanation for tech’s disconnection from reality.)
Eau de Fash
Tech has long had to deal with a long-standing “debate bro both sides free speech libertarianism” stench on it, as Soyweiser has noted, but between Silicon Valley’s willing collaboration with the Trump administration, plus fascists’ adoration of AI and AI slop, that stench has evolved into an unignorable smell of Eau de Fash covering the entire industry
As a consequence of this, I expect tech at large will be viewed as a Nazi bar writ large, with tech workers as a group being either willing accomplices to fascism if not outright fascist themselves. As for tech degrees, I expect they’ll be viewed as leaving their holders unequipped to resist fascism, if not outright vulnerable to fascist rhetoric.
Predicting the Job Market
(Disclaimer: This is not financial advice, this is just a shot in the dark from some dipshit with a laptop. I take no credit for whatever financial success my readers earn.)
With tech’s public cachet and “high-paying” reputation going out the window, plus the job market for tech collapsing, I expect a major drop-off in students taking up tech-related degrees, with a smaller drop-off for STEM degrees in general. By my guess, we aren’t gonna see another “learn to code” push for at least a decade. If and when another push starts, it’ll probably take on a completely different form than what we’ve seen before.
Exactly which professions will benefit from the tech crash, I don’t know - I’m not a Superpredictor™, I’m just some dipshit with a laptop. By my guess, professions which can exploit the fallout of AI to their benefit will have the best shot of becoming the next “lucrative cash cows”, so to speak.
For therapists/psychiatrists, the rise of AI psychosis and related mental health crises will likely give them a steady source of clients for the foreseeable future - whether that be because new clients have realised chatbot usage is ruining them, or because people are being involuntarily committed after losing touch with reality.
For those in writing related jobs, they may find lucrative work cleaning up attempts to sidestep them with AI slop, squeezing hefty premiums from desperate clients who find themselves lacking leverage over them.
For programmers, the rise of “vibe coding” has created mountains of technical debt and unmaintainable code that will need to be torn down - for those who manage to find themselves a job, they’ll probably make good money tearing those mountains down. For cybercriminals, the aforementioned “vibe coding”, plus the inherently insecure nature of chatbots/agents, will likely give them a lot of low-hanging fruit to go after.
As for degrees, those which can fill skills gaps the bubble has created/widened should benefit the most.
English/Creative Writing looks like an obvious winner - ChatGPT has fried a lot of people’s writing skills, so holding one of those degrees (ideally with a writing portfolio) can help convince an employer you don’t need spicy autocomplete to write for you.
Psychology/psychiatry will likely benefit quite a bit as well - both of those can directly assist in landing you a job as a therapist, which I’ve predicted will become much more lucrative in the coming years.