The Changing Face of Expertise with the Rise of AI

My friend is a software engineer who, like many of his peers these days, relies heavily on AI tools like GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and others to help him write code. He recently ran into trouble when a senior engineer reviewed one of his beautifully AI crafted algorithms in a PR and realized it left their python functions dangerously open for users to access anything.

This experience reminded me of my 9-year-old son's newfound passion for writing. He constantly has wonderfully imaginative ideas for stories swirling around his mind but lacks the skills and experience needed to translate those ideas from his imagination onto paper. Writing on paper takes too long and he’s just establishing his typing skills. To help him, we've been using Claude to get his thoughts down so he can then edit them into a coherent story later.

These two situations seem remarkably similar — both my son and my friend have access to the building blocks they need to create thanks to AI, but lack the deeper expertise and judgment that comes from years of experience. My son doesn’t yet have a strong sense for plot structure, pacing, prose and all the other intricacies that someone who has spent years reading, studying, and writing would have. And my friend, while competent at coding, lacks the engineering insights and risk analysis skills that come from many years of evaluating code for security, efficiency, design flaws, and unintended consequences.

When I look deeper, this dynamic is concerning when projected across industries and professions. As AI systems become more advanced, able to replicate basic and routine tasks, the bar for human expertise in any domain rises drastically. To be an author, you’ll soon need not just creative ideas but a mastery of language, audience analysis, and storytelling craft. To be an engineer, you’ll need seasoned judgment to critically analyze the code AI generates for risks. And so on for doctors who must combine AI diagnostic tools with human wisdom, lawyers who must balance compassion and legal principles, accountants who advise clients on financial decisions and more — AI will encroach into almost every professional domain.

The implications are stark. First, we need to completely rethink education and training, placing far greater focus on developing the higher-order thinking skills, and capacities for judgment that AI cannot replicate (yet). Rote memorization and procedures will make way for analysis, reflection and contextual decision making. For example, the bar for becoming a competent software engineer has already been raised and will continue to rise drastically thanks to AI pair programmers. Mastering languages and frameworks is no longer enough — you now need seasoned engineering judgment, critical thinking skills, and knowledge of risks like security and bias exposure to be successful. This pattern will emerge across industries, raising the bar for expertise and forcing us to re-evaluate how we prepare people for future careers working alongside AI.

Secondly, we risk aggravating inequality if the benefits of AI augmentation are only accessible to a small, privileged elite. The AI revolution feels abrupt, like we’ve gone from horse and buggy straight to rapid space travel. For those left behind without access to the development of high-level skills needed to utilize AI, we risk creating a more deeply entrenched digital divide. Rather than AI displacing jobs, with proper training it could augment human potential across all levels of the workforce. But without an intentional focus on uplifting those who risk being left behind, we could see ever growing disparities. Preparing society to integrate AI in an inclusive way must be a priority moving forward.

I don’t want to be all doom and gloom. I have high hopes for the future. The march of technological progress is inevitable, but we must guide our kids, the workforce, and society in general to integrate human strengths with artificial intelligence. If we take the approach of educating people in a way that elevates uniquely human potential, the experts and professionals of the future could achieve previously unimaginable creative, intellectual and moral heights for the betterment of humankind. The future is bright if we adjust our thinking — AI will elevate, not eliminate, the contributions of human expertise.