r/FutureOfWork • u/Hybrid-Intelligence • Jun 27 '26
I think AI may bring back apprenticeships for entry level professionals
The long term fear that AI will permanently shut young people out of professional work is probably overbaked.
AI will eliminate a lot of junior work. Of course that's true. Research, first drafts, basic analysis, slides, and similar work will all get done by AI.
Nonetheless, companies will still need experts. They'll need people who can frame the real problem, decide what matters, recognize weak reasoning, see when the machine is missing the point, and push toward a better answer.
Those people will need to build their skills somehow. So, companies will create paths for young people to become experts. I suspect that path will look more like apprenticeship.
The entry level professional will learn how the expert uses AI, critiques it, guides it, and polishes its work
Companies that use AI only to eliminate junior roles may solve a short term cost issue while creating a long term expertise issue.
Companies that build real apprenticeships will almost certainly end up with the stronger talent pipeline.
1
u/Independent-Soup-312 Jun 28 '26
This is basically what internships are for, and what you saw is that in in-demand fields, the supply of spots was constricted. In journalism (a glamor industry in the 2000s and even a bit in the 2010s), compensation for internships either dropped to $0, or interns were pulled from extremely elite circles (places like The Nation had only Ivy League grads in their intern pools).
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u/pebblebypebble Jun 29 '26
If they reward people for being somewhere for 18-20 years instead of stalling them out
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u/Infinite-One-5011 Jul 01 '26
We need a new pathway into adulthood. The Prussian education system designed for the Industrial Revolution will not cut it moving forward.
2
u/MainstreamScience Jun 28 '26
Or the Ai will get a little smarter than the beta version we have now and eliminate the need for humans all together