this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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The article title is click bait here is the full article:

Wondering what your career looks like in our increasingly uncertain, AI-powered future? According to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, it’s going to involve less of the comfortable office work to which most people aspire, a more old fashioned grunt work with your hands.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum yesterday, Karp insisted that the future of work is vocational — not just for those already in manufacturing and the skilled trades, but for the majority of humanity.

In the age of AI, Karp told attendees at a forum, a strong formal education in any of the humanities will soon spell certain doom.

“You went to an elite school, and you studied philosophy; hopefully you have some other skill,” he warned, adding that AI “will destroy humanities jobs.”

Karp, who himself holds humanities degrees from the elite liberal arts institutions of Haverford College and Stanford Law, will presumably be alright. With a net worth of $15.5 billion — well within the top 0.1 percent of global wealth owners — the Palantir CEO has enough money and power to live like a feudal lord (and that’s before AI even takes over.)

The rest of us, he indicates, will be stuck on the assembly line, building whatever the tech companies require.

“If you’re a vocational technician, or like, we’re building batteries for a battery company… now you’re very valuable, if not irreplaceable,” Karp insisted. “I mean, y’know, not to divert to my usual political screeds, but there will be more than enough jobs for the citizens of your nation, especially those with vocational training.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with vocational work or manufacturing. The global economy runs on these jobs. But in a theoretical world so fundamentally transformed by AI that intellectual labor essentially ceases to exist, it’s telling that tech billionaires like Karp see the rest of humanity as their worker bees.

It seems that the AI revolution never seems to threaten those who stand to profit the most from it — just the 99.9 percent of us building their batteries.

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[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca -1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Robot automation has not lowered the quality of a Ford vehicle

I never said that and the quality of a ford truck is irrelevant to the assembly worker who lost their job due to automation.

You need to back up because you have gone down a tangent alone.

The notion that people won't eat sawdust bread is demonstrably false with many historical examples proving you wrong. Your stipulation about zero flour is a moving goalpost and a strawman fyi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_food

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/dmnvp5/before_the_french_revolution_bread_was_sometimes/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Robot automation has not lowered the quality of a Ford vehicle

I never said that and the quality of a ford truck is irrelevant to the assembly worker who lost their job due to automation.

You need to back up because you have gone down a tangent alone.

I agree we're down a tangent, but I'm following the logic of your responses. This is a response to your original thesis: "AI robots can be utter shit". Then you introduced the ford example for automation, which isn't shit for assembly.

Which point to you want to back up to that would change our conversation path?

The notion that people won’t eat sawdust bread is demonstrably false with many historical examples proving you wrong.

I'm glad you saw those. I specifically chose sawdust in my example because of those events in history. Those support what I'm talking about. When the adulteration of the food became bad enough, people stopped eating it.

Your stipulation about zero flour is a moving goalpost and a strawman fyi

My "zero flour" comment is a response to your original thesis where you said: "quality of service can drop indefinitely."

It can't be indefinitely. There's a point where people will stop consuming it when it gets bad enough.

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca -1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

you said: "quality of service can drop indefinitely."

What I actually said was...

As long as the rich maintain their monopolies quality of service can drop indefinitely. Doesn't matter if AI robots suck ass when no human employed company can compete and every other option is just as ass.

So yes you have completely missed my point and are arguing with yourself, not me.

It can't be indefinitely. There's a point where people will stop consuming it when it gets bad enough.

Yes but I'm not talking about that. You need to go back and reread what I actually said and stop putting words in my mouth and trying to have a discussion with me that doesn't exist.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

I have never intentionally put words in your mouth. The best I can figure after rereading our entire thread is that you're jumping around on different points but giving no clues in the conversation you're doing that. As in, I'm responding to one of your points, but you're providing a rebuttal for a completely different point of your own.

In this conversation I've been trying to restate what I'm seeing as your interpretation in an attempt to confirm we're communicating, but then I get another response indicating we're not communicating.

There's two possibilities I see as to whats happening here:

  • your thesis and points are not logically consistent

OR

  • we are simply not able to communicate effectively with one another today

For the purposes of civility, I'm not going to make a judgment one which one these it is. I'll let you give your downvote button a rest and simply bow out talking more with you today. Maybe in the future we'll have better luck with one another.

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 0 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Bro all I'm saying is that the trend of enshittification is only going to accelerate in the world of AI.

and youre like YOUTUBE IS SHIT NOWWWWWWWWWW

FORD TRUCKS GOOOOOD

You literally refuted a statement about market monopolies with your personal youtube habits!

Seriously. Like im not trying to be a dick but throw me a fuckin bone here.

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 0 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Its the second one. I'm downvoting you because you keep omitting half my statements and responding to the resulting altered meaning... in a LOT more words than necessary I might add. Makes it really hard to redirect anything back on track when I have to dispel multiple misconceptions for every new statement. Feels like Sea Lioning which I'm gonna assume you don't approve of.

From what I read you seem more concerned about the quality of youtube videos and ford trucks than the workers who lost their jobs due to automation. I'm not sayings thats what you believe mind you. Just pointing out how different of a page you are on than me.