A letter I wrote in response to this piece : {{
I read the recent NY Times article, “Mom, Dad, I Want to Be a Welder,” with great interest. It describes a growing number of young people choosing skilled trades over traditional white-collar careers. One of the motivations they cite is the belief that occupations requiring manual dexterity are less likely to be displaced by AI than office work. This strikes me as reasonable. AI has already demonstrated remarkable success at many tasks long considered hallmarks of white-collar expertise: scoring highly on medical examinations, drafting legal documents, solving difficult mathematical problems, and writing software. By contrast, robots still struggle with the manual dexterity required for many everyday physical tasks, such as tying shoelaces.
Yet there is an irony here. Traditionally, blue-collar workers report to white-collar managers. If AI increasingly takes over white-collar functions, we could find ourselves in a future where large numbers of human tradespeople report to organizations whose scheduling, dispatching, performance evaluation, and even hiring are increasingly directed by AIs. In that sense, AI may not directly replace the electrician, plumber, or welder, but it may still reshape—and increasingly govern—the environment in which they work.
}}
In Turning to Trade School, Gen Z Confronts an Enduring Stigma – The
New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/style/gen-z-trade-school-careers-ai-college.html
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