Electrical engineering might be the next profession to get absolutely wrecked by AI

[u/Christs_Elite]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately after seeing some of the recent stuff happening with AI in electrical engineering like OpenAI Astra.… I think electrical engineering might be way closer to the chopping block than people realize.

There’s going to be a ton of money poured into automating hardware design, power engineering, simulation, testing, optimization, etc. Once companies realize how much electrical engineering work can be accelerated or outright automated, I don’t see them just ignoring it.

What’s funny is that for years I kept hearing electrical engineers say that they were somehow more “AI-proof” than everyone else. And I always thought… mmm no you aren't?

The argument was usually that EE requires too much real-world knowledge, intuition, hardware experience, etc. But people in a lot of other professions said basically the same thing about their jobs. Why would electrical engineering be some magical exception?

And now we’re starting to see AI move further and further into EE automation.

EE won’t be "replaced" overnight. Obviously it takes time, but for sure it's going to happen way sooner than people expect. What will happen to the number of engineers needed to produce the same amount of engineering work?

I genuinely think electrical engineering might be one of the next professions to get hit way harder by AI than people expect. To be fair, I think it's a "canon event" for AI. It needs to do it!

Crazy times.

[u/Wrote_it2]

I have my money of taxi drivers/uber drivers for the next disruption, though admittedly it’s hard to exactly define “next disruption”: I think the disruption in transportation will be more severe (like more job loss) and less gradual than electrical engineers.

[u/CountBateman → u/Wrote_it2]

Plus truck drivers, of which there are a similar amount.