There will be no AI jobpocalypse. The story that AI will lead to massive unemployment is stoking unnecessary fear. AI — like any other technology — does affect jobs, but telling overblown stories of large-scale unemployment is irresponsible and damaging. Let’s put a stop to it. I’ve expressed skepticism about the jobpocalypse in previous posts. I’m glad to see that the popular press is now pushing back on this narrative. The image below features some recent headlines. Software engineering is the sector most affected by AI tools, as coding agents race ahead. Yet hiring of software engineers remains strong! So while there are examples of AI taking away jobs, the trends strongly suggest the net job creation is vastly greater than the job destruction — just like earlier waves of technology. Further, despite all the exciting progress in AI, the U.S. unemployment rate remains a healthy 4.3%. Why is the AI jobpocalypse narrative so popular? For one thing, frontier AI labs have a strong incentive to tell stories that make AI technology sound more powerful. At their most extreme, they promote science-fiction scenarios of AI “taking over” and causing human extinction. If a technology can replace many employees, surely that technology must be very valuable! Also, a lot of SaaS software companies charge around $100-$1000 per user/year. But if an AI company can replace an employee who makes $100,000 — or make them 50% more productive — then charging even $10,000 starts to look reasonable. By anchoring not to typical SaaS prices but to salaries of employees, AI companies can charge a lot more. Additionally, businesses have a strong incentive to talk about layoffs as if they were caused by AI. After all, talking about how they’re using AI to be far more productive with fewer staff makes them look smart. This is a better message than admitting they overhired during the pandemic when capital was abundant due to low interest rates and a massive government financial stimulus. To be clear, I recognize that AI is causing a lot of people’s work to change. This is hard. This is stressful. (And to some, it can be fun.) I empathize with everyone affected. At the same time, this is very different from predicting a collapse of the job market. Societies are capable of telling themselves stories for years that have little basis in reality and lead to poor society-wide decision making. For example, fears over nuclear plant safety led to under-investment in nuclear power. Fears of the “population bomb” in the 1960s led countries to implement harsh policies to reduce their populations. And worries about dietary fat led governments to promote unhealthy high-sugar diets for decades. Now that mainstream media is openly skeptical about the jobpocalypse, I hope these stories will start to lose their teeth (much like fears of AI-driven human extinction have). Contrary to the predictions of an AI jobpocalypse, I predict the opposite: There will be an AI jobapalooza! AI will lead to a lot more good AI engineering jobs, and I’m also optimistic about the future of the overall job market. What AI engineers do will be different from traditional software engineering, and many of these jobs will be in businesses other than traditional large employers of developers. In non-AI roles, too, the skills needed will change because of AI. That makes this a good time to encourage more people to become proficient in AI, and make sure they’re ready for the different but plentiful jobs of the future! [Original text in The Batch newsletter.]

How we prompt AI is very different in 2026 than 2022 when ChatGPT came out. I'm teaching a new course, AI Prompting for Everyone, to help you become an AI power user — whatever your current skill level. It covers skills that apply across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other AI tools. How to use deep research mode for well-researched reports on complex questions. How to give AI the right context, including more documents and images than most people realize you can provide. When to ask AI to think hard for several minutes on important decisions like what car to buy, what to study, or what job to take. And how to use AI to generate images, analyze data, and build simple games and websites. I also cover intuitions about how these models work under the hood, so you know when to trust an answer and when not to. Along the way, you'll see flying squirrels, a creativity test, some of my old family photos, and fireworks. Join me at

关于AI时代的职业发展，吴恩达和Lawrence在斯坦福的AI时代职业发展讲座内容很详实，分享下我的收获。 1️⃣ AI能力在加速 有一项研究让吴恩达反复引用：AI能完成的任务复杂度，每7个月翻一倍。 衡量复杂度的方式是：这个任务让一个人做需要多久？ 几年前 GPT-2 能完成的任务，换成人类来做也只需要几秒钟，但现在已经进化到AI能够完成需要人类几十分钟甚至几小时的工作。 AI编程方向的翻倍周期更短，大概70天。 但有意思的是，很多人对这个加速的感知是被扭曲的。 原因很简单，评估 AI 能力的 benchmark，满分是100%，你做到90%之后再进步10个点，数值的绝对值变化看起来很小。 于是去年有段时间整个互联网在讨论 AI 是不是在走下坡路，这是因为用一把只能量到100的尺子去量一个还在生长的东西，当然会产生这种幻觉。 真正能衡量 AI 是否变的更智能的指标，不是在 benchmark 测试上的分数，而是 AI 能够处理的任务的复杂度这条曲线，目前看，还在往上走。 2️⃣ PM 和工程师的比例在变 当 Build is Cheap，瓶颈就转移到了决策。 传统硅谷的工程师和 PM 比例大概在4:1到8:1。一个 PM 负责写需求、定方向，四到八个工程师负责执行。 这个比例背后的假设是：执行很贵，写代码很贵，所以你需要大量人手把一个清晰的 spec 变成可运行的代码。 但现在这个假设已经失效了，编码成本在快速下降，但产品决策的成本没有同等下降。于是工程师和 PM 的比例开始向1:1靠近，甚至有团队开始践行这个配比。 更进一步，吴恩达说他现在最欣赏的那批工程师，是能写代码也能跟用户聊的人。 这两件事以前被认为是不同人来做，现在越来越多地被要求长在同一个人身上。 他自己说：在生涯早期，他曾经试图说服一批工程师多做产品工作，结果把一些真正优秀的工程师弄得很沮丧，因为他们不擅长做 PM 工作；他说那是他做过的错误决策之一，后悔了很多年。 然后他说，他觉得自己现在正在重蹈同样的错误。 这句话有点绕，但我觉得他说的是真话：不是所有工程师都应该变成 PM，但如果你恰好能做这件事，你现在的优势会比任何时候都大。 3️⃣ 团队 > 公司 这部分我觉得是整场讲座信息密度最高的地方，也启发了我的机会选择思路。 他讲了一个案例：有个斯坦福的学生，被一家很热门的 AI 公司录用，但对方拒绝事先告知他会加入哪个团队，说有什么 rotation 机制，入职之后再分配。这个学生因为公司品牌够大，就签了 offer，结果被分配去做 Java 后端支付系统。做了一年之后觉得无聊，离职了。 然后吴恩达说，他在 CS230 课上分享过这个案例之后，另一个学生在几年后去了同一家公司，遇到了一模一样的情况。不是 Java 后端，是另一个跟 AI 八竿子打不着的方向。 如果一家公司入职前不告诉你会在哪个团队，这件事本身就是信息。 logo 不大但团队很强的地方，往往比 logo 大但团队一般的地方学得更快。你不是从走进大门那一刻的兴奋感里学东西的，你是从每天打交道的人身上学东西的。 在这个时代，能去到一个足够强的AI Native的小公司，一定比进入大厂的某个传统业务团队更好、成长更快，团队 > 公司。 4️⃣ AI时代的三个能力支柱 接下来换成 Lawrence Moroni 做分享，他是互联网科技的数十年老兵，呆过Google、Microsoft、Meta等公司，他接着讲了他看到当前 AI 人才身上的三个最重要的能力。 1.深度理解：不只是会调 API，而是要真的能读懂论文、理解模型架构、知道什么是信号什么是噪音。这个护城河现在比任何时候都值钱，因为现在社交媒体通过 AI 生成内容、制造噪音的成本降到了零。 2.业务聚焦：你能不能把技术能力翻译成商业价值。他讲了一个案例：一家欧洲公司来找他说想做 Agent，他直接问的第一个问题是为什么，不是要做什么 Agent。剥洋葱剥到最后，CEO 想要的其实是让销售团队更有效率。这个目标里从头到尾都没出现 AI 这个词。从这个真实需求出发，才能做出真正有用的东西，而不是一堆漂亮的演示。 3.Bias toward delivery：这个是他说的，想法很便宜，执行才是一切。他见过很多人带着半生不熟的想法进面试，也见过很多人带着不完整但落地得很扎实的方案进面试，通常都是后者能拿到结果。 5️⃣ 深刻理解技术债 每一行你使用AI生成的代码都是债。 Bug、文档、维护、新需求，这些都是你在还债。问题不在于要不要用 AI 生成代码，而在于你生成的每一行代码是好债还是坏债。 把 technical debt 当成财务债务来理解：买房贷款是好债，冲动刷信用卡买鞋是坏债。 判断标准就三条：你的目标清不清楚？有没有真正的业务价值被交付？别人能不能看懂这段代码？ 他说他在硅谷见过太多人把 vibe 出来的代码直接 check in 进仓库，然后没人知道那堆代码在干什么，原作者后来找到了更好的工作，离开了，那些代码就留在那里成了一块永久的技术债。 最后：一些职业建议 Lawrence 说，他预测未来五年 AI 会发生分叉：一边是越来越大的 frontier model，另一边是越来越小、可以自部署的 open weight model。 他的判断是，大模型这边的泡沫会先破，小模型这边的泡沫会晚一些。 好的工程师应该同时押注两边，而不是把所有技能集中在一个方向上；会训练、微调模型的人才很重要，未来会有越来越多企业自部署小型模型。 相比于做一个领域的专家，更推荐做多个领域的复合人才。