Ever since AI was introduced and implemented everywhere, there has been a constant fear among everybody about the future of employment: how AI is going to eliminate so many jobs that it could potentially increase the unemployment rate.

I view AI as a necessary evil in this matter. Due to capitalism, most of us have become workaholics. Working longer hours has been romanticized and made us think that it’s the new norm. Just like any other muscle, the brain is also a muscle that grows only when we take rest. However, ‘taking a break’ is being perceived as being weak. Thanks to all the quotes such as “I sleep when I die.” So many people are working multiple jobs with a hope to improve their lifestyle. This habit takes a toll on our emotions, social energy, and mental health. Besides, it is also affecting our relationships with our family members and/or friends.

By using AI to do some of the mundane jobs, we could get the work done in a shorter amount of time, resulting in fewer work hours and more ‘rest,’ ‘family,’ or ‘me’-time. This is important to cultivate the next generation with a healthy lifestyle. All the spare time can be re-invested into creating or developing more technological advancements, arts, etc. If you think about it, in the past, we did not have as much technology or resources, but we invented so many great things. Today, we possess all sorts of smart gadgets, but the number of inventions is comparatively low. So, why not use the spare time to tap into the creative mind and create something extraordinary while AI takes care of the day job?

However, on the other side, AI is also making us think less. Just because it can solve most of the world’s hardest problems in less than microseconds, people are relying on it excessively and opting out of thinking even when it’s an easy question. I am equally guilty of this. This worries me because if everybody turns to AI to solve all the problems, besides the scarcity of natural resources like water, it could also affect the quality of future generations. For example, imagine students copying answers from AI to complete assignments without learning anything. Future engineers, doctors, and lawyers will lose their credibility. This will only create more chaos than doing any good to humankind.

Therefore, my recommendation is to change the traditional education method into something more practical. Instead of teaching students about what our predecessors found, we need to divert our focus into a more hands-on method. Let our students get their hands dirty, applying their theoretical knowledge into practice instead of expecting them to memorize concepts from textbooks. Provide them with more case studies and industrial news materials to read, and encourage them to think about how the problems could have been solved differently. We should welcome more research. AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude rely on the data we are feeding them, and their information can’t be correct at all times. We need to focus on learning how to validate AI’s output and rectify the errors. I believe that’s the direction the future is heading with AI.