Will the chosen profession be eliminated by AI after 4 years? Will the current popular majors become unpopular when they graduate? Whether to choose based on hobbies or reality?
In recent days, the 12.91 million candidates who have just walked out of the college entrance examination room are facing a more important life decision - volunteering to fill out the report.
Today, with the blessing of hot concepts such as large language models represented by ChatGPT, computer majors have become the "top stream" when volunteering to fill in the application.
Therefore, the author found industry experts who had worked in high-tech and Internet companies such as Alibaba, Huawei, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM, and then joined Instant Consumer Finance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Immediate Consumption"), and asked them to talk about the development trends and prospects of these "top-notch" professions.
"4 years is enough to turn a popular major into an unpopular"
"The tide is always changing, don't get caught up in hot spots. In the current high-speed change, 4 years is enough time to make a popular major unpopular, and vice versa. Wu Haiying, senior technical director of Immediate Consumption, said.
In 1991, Wu Haiying studied computer science at the University of Science and Technology of China, and later continued to work in high-tech enterprises such as HP and Huawei. He was fortunate that HKUST's science and engineering program was a five-year program, and the first two years were completely focused on studying physics and mathematics, laying the foundation for future development. "These two years have been especially earning, and I have learned a lot of the most useful underlying abilities in my career."
Therefore, Wu Haiying suggested that students who have their own clear goals and interests should first respect their inner thoughts. For students whose interests are not so clear, have better grades, and have a plan for graduate school, they can give priority to learning basic subjects such as physics and mathematics during their undergraduate studies, and then delve deeper into applied subjects when studying in graduate school in the future. "The more basic the subject adaptability, and the students' abstract thinking, logical reasoning and other underlying soft abilities have systematic training", he said, basic disciplines and underlying soft abilities, is a lifetime of core capabilities, it is the source of innovative ability, but also the basis of rapid learning ability, it can help you through the hot and cold cycle, through the future career in the various changes.
Lu Quan, president of the Instant Consumer Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, believes that the prosperity of the Internet and related industries is a product of a specific historical period. Now, the development speed of this "trend" has slowed down, and it is unrealistic to hope that filling in "computer", "artificial intelligence" or any other major in the college entrance examination volunteer will sit back and relax and eat dividends.
Dr. Lu Quan studied at Tsinghua University and then went to the University of Southern California to pursue a Ph.D. in systems engineering, and is a recognized algorithm expert in the industry.
Lu Quan, president of the Consumer Artificial Intelligence Research Institute
As a manager, he pays more attention to the candidates' potential learning ability and innovation ability when recruiting, and does not strictly restrict the professional background, and even relaxes the requirements to science and engineering. "In the same way, students whose interests and goals are not yet clear, it is especially important to choose a less 'narrow' major."
However, there are also practitioners who believe that the interests of high school students are not enough to support a lifetime of choices.
Zhao Yong, who graduated from Zhejiang University majoring in automation, is currently an expert in consumer big data. He believes that many high school students' judgment of their interests and hobbies is not accurate, and there will be a lot of changes in the future, in addition to interests, choosing a major is inevitable to do some considerations from a practical and utilitarian perspective.
"For ordinary families, computer science is a profession that can give people more opportunities to 'counterattack'," Zhao Yong said, adding that there are many such cases in society. Although the industry has also faced some adjustments in recent years, it can still support the dreams of many young people.
"Basic programmers may be eliminated in the future"
In the past, volunteering to fill out the report was just a competition with other candidates, but now a new competitor has been added to this competition - artificial intelligence.
With the advent of the AI era, the disruptive changes brought by technology have brought an unprecedented sense of crisis to many professions. In particular, the "thousand model war" triggered by the popularity of large models this year is a countdown to the replacement of some positions.
Are computer jobs closely related to artificial intelligence also in danger of being replaced? Lu Quan gave an affirmative answer: "Artificial intelligence-assisted programming has greatly improved work efficiency, and it is a fact that so many basic programmers will definitely not be used in the future." ”
"Of course, demand in this industry is still strong," Lu added. It's just that after studying computer science, the development path of wanting to become a basic programmer no longer seems to be a wise choice.
Under the great changes in the industry, practitioners need to upgrade their skills in an all-round way, which is a change that candidates must pay attention to.
In fact, computer science is a large category, which includes four first-level disciplines, namely computer science and technology, software engineering, artificial intelligence and network information security, if further subdivided, it can also be divided into big data, Internet of Things, meta-universe and other directions.
Immediately, Cao Rui, a senior data governance expert, graduated from Fudan University with a major in software engineering. He believes that "although there is a hot rotation in the entire computer category, the overall employment situation is okay." "At present, a large wave of schools are chasing hot spots and catching up with the boom, competing to open departments and majors such as artificial intelligence and even metaverse. In response to this phenomenon, Cao Rui suggested that candidates must make comprehensive considerations from the dimensions of the overall scientific research strength, faculty, curriculum planning and other dimensions of the department, and judge the quality of the institution and major, and do not "fall into the pit" because of hot concepts.
In addition, "explosive" majors such as artificial intelligence, algorithms, and autonomous driving may not be suitable for most candidates. Zhao Yong also suggested that students with good grades and excellent mathematical ability consider these majors. Because graduates are engaged in "human-machine confrontation" type work, the industry has relatively high requirements for practitioners' abilities, and generally speaking, masters and doctoral students from prestigious universities have more development opportunities.
In the eyes of some practitioners, the Internet industry is still in the process of development, and the risk of being replaced is not so exaggerated compared to other industries. Because there will always be "value depressions" in the industry, the efficiency improvement brought by new technologies, while making some positions face elimination, also means the emergence and rebirth of others. Moreover, there are many opportunities for transformation in the Internet industry, and there is not only programming as a way out.
The above 4 professionals interviewed are representatives who joined the Internet or technology companies to consume immediately. In recent years, a number of scientific and technological talents have joined this technology-driven financial institution, making the latter's scientific research talents account for more than 70%.
Since its establishment 8 years ago, the cumulative R&D investment of Immediate Consumption has exceeded 3 billion yuan, the cumulative number of invention patents has reached 1266, and 955 invention patents have been published, accounting for 52.84% of the industry, ranking first in the national consumer finance industry. Excellent independent research and development capabilities are supporting the rapid development of enterprises.
Caption: Immediately consume some of the participants of the "Tianma Cup"
This article is derived from financial world information