I was sitting on the porch this afternoon, thinking about how much technology has changed during my 27 years in the industry. Things that once took days can now happen in minutes. We can describe an idea to an AI tool and watch it produce something that would once have required several people working together. That is exciting, but it also left me wondering where all this leads.
For generations, people learned a living by working alongside someone who already knew the trade. A carpenter taught an apprentice how to build. A plumber passed along the experience needed to understand what was happening behind the wall. You learned through instruction, repetition, mistakes, and the guidance of someone who had made a few mistakes of their own.
Formal education gave us another way to build knowledge and opened doors to different careers. These paths have existed alongside one another, although somewhere along the way, many people began treating a college degree as the preferred route to success. Meanwhile, we continued depending on people who could build our homes, keep the lights on, and repair what broke. Those skills never stopped mattering.
Now we have AI models and agents that can explain, write, analyze, and carry out parts of a process for us. It raises a reasonable question: how much will we still need to learn ourselves? If a computer can provide the answer and perform the task, will people still see the value in spending years developing the skill?
Having worked as a carpenter before moving into technology, I have respect for what it takes to learn a trade. A generated set of instructions cannot climb into an attic, inspect an unexpected problem, or take responsibility for the finished work. Robotics may change more of that physical work over time, but there is a great deal between describing a repair and completing it properly. I wonder whether practical skills could become even more valuable as more people look toward careers behind a screen.
College faces a different question. Will AI change what students need from an education, how they learn, and what they are willing to pay for it? I expect it will, but I would hesitate to say college will disappear in ten years. I would rather see education evolve so students learn the fundamentals, use modern tools, and demonstrate that they understand the results.
The part that concerns me most is how people will gain experience. A junior developer learns by working through problems, asking questions, and discovering why an approach failed. An apprentice develops judgment through supervised practice. If we hand all the early work to AI, we need to think carefully about where that learning will happen.
Someone still needs to recognize when an answer sounds convincing but is wrong. Someone needs to understand the customer's circumstances, question an assumption, and accept responsibility for a decision. Learning how to prompt a system is useful, but I cannot see it replacing every other kind of expertise. Knowing what to ask often depends on knowing something about the subject in the first place.
There is also the question of dependence. When knowledge lives in people, they can carry it into another job, teach it to someone else, or use it when the systems are unavailable. If we increasingly depend on services we do not control, what happens when access changes or the answer cannot be verified? Knowledge has given people independence for generations, and I think that deserves a place in this conversation.
Looking ahead ten or twenty years, I can imagine a future where AI helps more people learn, build businesses, and accomplish things they once thought were beyond their reach. I can also imagine us becoming very good at requesting results while gradually losing the ability to assess them. Neither outcome is guaranteed. The choices we make about education, mentoring, and work will help determine which direction we take.
I want us to keep moving forward, and I want us to bring the lessons of earlier generations with us. Let AI explain the problem, then give someone the opportunity to work through it. Let experienced people use better tools while continuing to teach those coming behind them. Progress should leave the next generation capable of carrying the work forward.
What is one skill you believe we should keep teaching people to do themselves, even when AI can do much of it for them?
Thanks,
Michael Cronin
Website: https://www.michaelcronin.info
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltcronin/details/experience/
