The AI-Powered Future: 5 Jobs That Will Boom and 5 That Will Disappear
The future is coming in fast, and peoples livelihoods are being affected, let's see which are the jobs that will go boom and which will go bust.
The year is 2030, you’re sitting in a café, sipping on a flat white, scrolling through the news on your phone. Everywhere you look, AI, AI, AI…. Some jobs are thriving, others have gone the way of Blockbusters.
The world’s changing faster than most people can keep up with, our primate brains just didn’t evolve to handle this level of change, if you don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of history, it’s worth knowing where things are headed.
The Boom: Jobs That Are Going Nowhere but Up
The hysteria from a lot of people is that AI will completely disrupt our economies and most jobs will completely disappear, humans will no longer be required. The truth is, it may yet be a while before AI comes for all of our jobs, here’s a list that goes into the jobs that will disappear and what ones will power on through the AI revolution.
1. AI Trainers and Ethicists
Turns out, teaching AI how to think (without accidentally turning it into some dystopian nightmare) is a full-time job. AI trainers fine-tune machine learning models, while ethicists try to keep them from going rogue. It’s the sort of work that wasn’t on anyone’s radar a decade ago, but now? It’s essential. AI still doesn’t understand sarcasm or why British people say “not bad” when they mean “actually, quite good,” so it’s safe to say, there’s still work to be done.
I myself have been doing freelance providing AI integrations, specifically about language, and with the frontier models at the moment, there is a long way to go before AI can fully replace top quality writing.
2. Data Curators & Analysts
Big data’s getting bigger, and someone’s got to sift through it. Think of this lot as digital archaeologists, uncovering patterns, insights, and useful nuggets from mountains of raw information. The difference is, instead of digging up dinosaur bones, they’re digging up trends that companies will happily pay good money for.
Some people think, you can just pass in mountains of data into AI systems and get whatever insights you’d like, the truth is, when dealing with big data, there is no alternative but to have a qualified professional that orchestrates this, more often than not by using a combination of skills that include programming (even if AI is helping generate some of this code), you still need the kind of mind that allows you to visualise and process data and know what you need to do.
3. Creative Collaborators
You might think AI would put artists, musicians, and writers out of work, but in reality, it’s more like a creative sidekick. The people who are thriving are the ones using AI as a tool to enhance their work rather than seeing it as a replacement. You’ve got musicians using AI to generate backing tracks, designers using it to create new styles, and writers who use it to spark ideas.
Personally, I won’t consume purely AI generated content, there is a flair that comes only from a creative human mind, and it cannot yet be replaced with AI, but people who use it to create are being more creative than ever in my opinion, and this will only continue, and it will accelerate creators abilities to create and they’ll have a greater output than ever before.
4. Cybersecurity Experts
AI’s clever, but so are the people trying to hack it. The fact is at the moment, a lot of AI generated code is full of security holes, programmers using it are able to obviously identify and fix these issues whilst still getting a benefit from using AI, but as companies become more reliant on AI systems, security is becoming more and more an arms race.
Cybercriminals are getting smarter, and so are the experts fighting them. If you’re good at spotting vulnerabilities before the bad guys do, you’ll never be out of work.
Vibe coding means that more and more people without programming or security experience are creating products, and this is where a lot of the security holes from AI generated code is coming from.
5. Human-made physical products
A few decades ago, it was thought that blue collar jobs would be the first to go, with the advent of the first industrial robots and companies saw a future where factories would be completely automated, and it was thought this would expand to most human physical labour.
However, history thus far has played out a little differently, it’s now white collar jobs that are under the most threat at least in the interim, as the robotics revelation is just around the corner, and could logistically lead to the decimation of blue collar jobs.
One thing however that will not be taken over by AI, at least not in it’s entirety, are artisanal human made products, with an economy moving more and more towards automation, products lovingly crafted by humans will become harder and harder to find and still be relevant. This can be anything from human crafted electronics (I recently bought an amazing handmade midi controller called ERAE), I’ve also bought extensively from Etsy, as do many others.
In our current economy this industry still thrives, despite the fact we already have cheaper alternatives.
The Doom: Jobs That Are On Their Way Out
Inevitably there are jobs that will go the way of the Dodo, nothing lasts forever…
1. Routine Admin Roles
If you’re still faffing about with spreadsheets and manually scheduling meetings, I’ve got bad news. AI assistants are already doing that faster and with fewer errors. Traditional admin jobs are disappearing because automation can handle the dull, repetitive bits without sighing audibly every time someone asks for a report. With the advent of conversational AI like Sesame’s Mike/Maya telephone support and sales is also very likely to be mostly replaced.
2. Customer Service Agents
You know those live chat pop-ups on websites? A lot of them aren’t actual people anymore in case you haven’t noticed... AI’s getting better at handling customer queries, so unless the job requires a real human touch, a chatbot’s probably going to be cheaper and more efficient. In a few years, calling customer support and speaking to an actual person will be as rare as finding a working self-checkout machine on the first try.
3. Basic Manufacturing Jobs
This one’s been on the chopping block for a while. Robots don’t take breaks, don’t demand pay rises, and don’t call in sick because they went on a bender the night before. As AI-driven automation improves, repetitive factory jobs are being replaced at an alarming rate, there are now entire ports that are completely automated running like a well rehearsed orchestra.
4. Middle Management
This one’s interesting. AI is starting to take over a lot of the decision-making that middle managers used to do: tracking performance, assigning tasks, and optimising workflows. The days of useless PowerPoint meetings and passive-aggressive email chains might actually be numbered. Imagine a world where you don’t have to pretend to care about Steve from accounting’s weekly update. Beautiful.
5. Traditional News Reporters
AI can already write news articles faster than any journalist. Sports scores, financial updates, even basic news reports, AI is handling them all. The result is newsrooms are shrinking, and human reporters are focusing more on investigative work, opinion pieces, and deep dives. If you’re writing formulaic, by-the-numbers news stories, you’re in trouble.
Adapt or Get Left Behind
The future’s coming, whether we like it or not. AI isn’t just a trend, it’s a fundamental shift in how work gets done. Some people will thrive, others will get steamrolled. The trick is to not get too comfortable. Learn new skills, stay ahead of the curve, and most importantly, don’t bury your head in the sand hoping it’ll all blow over or just spouting the same tired line that people use “It’s just a text generator”
Because in 2030, when you’re sitting in that café, watching the world change around you, the last thing you want is to realise you’re the one being left behind barely able to afford the coffee you just bought.