I studied physics, and most of my classmates did not end up doing anything with physics. Many are in finance or insurance or programming positions. In general, studying anything challenging (from theatre to theoretical computer science) gives some specific skills and some general abilities that etsure it isn't a complete waste even if you end up doing something different.

(That said, this is not fun, and I sympathise! I'm still a student and would like to avoid finance if at all possible. Just suggesting not to drop everything if you feel like you're learning in the process.)

(I'm now personally in the position of having to choose a PhD project, and this rapid change is interacting with making long-term plans really badly. Guidance welcome!)

> I'm not quite sure what to do. Any thoughts from people in similar positions?

Almost every single person who earns money for labor is, or will very soon be, in exactly the same position as you, many are just either unaware of how fast the change is coming or are deep in denial about it.

None of us know what to do about it other than hope that we find a peaceful political solution prior to the economic collapse.

I think you must either have a very narrow idea of how people earn money, or are ridiculously extrapolating what AI might do someday.

I think this depends a lot on what you plan to do after your PhD. Moving to industry you will likely not use the direct work of your PhD, and instead you will rely on your broad knowledge, intuition, rigor, ability to learn hard things, and extend that to bring new research developments into practice, all of which are largely unrelated to AI scooping math proofs of prize problems.

I definitely have no dreams of doing research. If I could do anything, I would want to teach, but if that can't happen, I am worried that my skills won't be valuable in industry.

On the contrary, the only jobs left will be things that AI can NOT do. I think essentially all jobs will all converge to the single role of "pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and creativity." A lot of those would essentially require PhD-level skills, or more likely, a similar mindset; except you get your own team of research assistants to torture (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49947079)

Unfortunately, the current world is not set up for that, and until we get there, yeah things are gonna get pretty hairy. But if and when we get to the other side, I think the future will be glorious.

AI can not clean toilets. I guess that's what's left for humans!

Don't be so sure. Robots are coming. Physical jobs will be automated too.

Whatever you do, you should get comfortable working with AI. That will be necessary in just about any job.

No one knows the answer. However, trusting your curiosity and going where it takes you may be a reasonable strategy. If the model asymptotes, you will be ready to figure out how to build upon it and if not, at least you will have had fun satiating your curiousity!

It probably will lead to people needing to be extremely talented in computer science and mathematics at an even higher level, maybe those currently at the top need more competition to press even further ahead?

This is what I'm most afraid of. I am not exactly dumb, but I really value having a work-life balance and many of my PhD peers are utterly cracked in ways I am not. I am concerned this will squeeze me out of a job.

Well, academia was always like this. There was never room for chill people to begin with.

This is true, but I don't want to go into research academia. If I could do whatever I wanted, I would want to teach at a college level.

That should still be possible if you get a decent PhD and some teaching experience. Typically the research oriented people don't care for the less prestigious teaching positions on college level. At least, that was my experience back in the day.

Everything that you understand, everything that you learn, everything that you experience gives you more value.

I studied CS, I have been a software engineer for 15 years. The one thing AI cannot take from me is my understanding, my experience, my intuition. An AI will gladly do whatever you tell it to do, and it is getting really good at it. But I regularly have to steer the AI to the right direction. Not because its default wouldn't have worked at all, but because I knew better.

If I task an AI to build something I don't understand myself, I can get further than without an AI, but I am limited. But when I use an AI to build something I am an expert at... I see that it is better than what non-experts get AIs to do.

You lose when you stop learning. You are a PhD student, you have learned to learn. Keep that. Keep learning actively. It was never about the PhD anyway: when you go to the industry, nobody cares about your PhD. What you have is what you know.