The revenge of the humanists

A couple of years ago, when the AI debate was raging only in certain circles and hadn't gone global yet, I read a statement that really made me think. I don't remember where I found it, but I don't want to pass it off as my own.

It went more or less like this: "The only profession that will come through the current technological revolution untouched is that of the ethics expert." Yes, you read that right: ethics expert. I'm talking about actual moral philosophers.
In fact, the one thing we'll have to keep handing to AI agents, without them sorting it out themselves, is the moral perimeter they have to operate within: the tablets of the commandments, a manifesto, the rulebook. The rest they can do by themselves.

When I was a kid, people used to say: "Go study engineering, medicine, economics, law, at the very least physics or political science, so you can actually find a job. What the fuck are you studying philosophy for? Do you want to end up unemployed, giving talks to drunks in some tavern?"

And here we are. The lecturer for drunks, the guy who followed his passion and picked the "losing" major, will be the new super-executive with a multimillion-dollar golden parachute. And we know-it-alls who earned the "right" degrees will have to hope that universal basic income isn't just a starvation handout.

Drafted from Italian with Blog Translator, then revised by me.