Risk Expert Says "Learn to Code" Is Now Worse Advice Than "Get a Face Tattoo"

During a recent exchange on "Real Time with Bill Maher," risk analyst Ian Bremmer argued that artificial intelligence has basically eviscerated the "learn to code" cottage industry.

When discussing the way AI has swept the world and taken many white collar jobs with it, Bremmer referenced how rapidly the technology has overtaken the traditional career trajectory for programmers — so much so that people who used to have cushy software developer jobs are now selling their plasma to make ends meet.

"Just five years ago, the smartest advice that we had for the kids was 'learn how to code,'" Bremmer recollected. "That is literally worse advice now than 'get a face tattoo.' You can't do worse than learn to code."

Indeed, in its latest labor market report, the New York Federal Reserve found that recent college graduates who majored in computer science or computer engineering have higher rates of unemployment than those who studied journalism, political science, and even English.

Overall, computer science majors had the seventh-highest rate of unemployment at 6.1 percent, and computer engineering majors had the third-highest at 7.5 percent, per the New York Fed. Compared to the overall recent graduate unemployment rate of 5.8 percent, that's an embarrassing reversal indeed — especially for a field that was once considered a safe and lucrative bet for prospective students.

During the lively discussion, Bremmer's fellow guest, historian and author Rutger Bregman invoked a popular silver lining talking point about AI hoovering up white collar jobs: that ultimately, capitalists will "come up with new bullsh*t jobs" for people who lost work to the technology.

In the wake of so many tech layoffs, the new adage is now "learn AI" — but as tech founder Joe Procopio wrote in an Inc magazine column earlier this year, that advice probably about as effective long-term as "learn to code."

"We’ve already inadvertently created a class of 'AI talent' that knows how to code with GitHub Copilot," the serial entrepreneur and advisor wrote. "This is not going to create better code for better apps for better business outcomes."

Instead, as Procopio aptly noted, "it’s doing a great job creating AI slop but with code — just like 'Learn To Code' created a workforce of terrible coders, who are now easy targets to be replaced by AI slop coders."