The article title is click bait here is the full article:
Wondering what your career looks like in our increasingly uncertain, AI-powered future? According to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, it’s going to involve less of the comfortable office work to which most people aspire, a more old fashioned grunt work with your hands.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum yesterday, Karp insisted that the future of work is vocational — not just for those already in manufacturing and the skilled trades, but for the majority of humanity.
In the age of AI, Karp told attendees at a forum, a strong formal education in any of the humanities will soon spell certain doom.
“You went to an elite school, and you studied philosophy; hopefully you have some other skill,” he warned, adding that AI “will destroy humanities jobs.”
Karp, who himself holds humanities degrees from the elite liberal arts institutions of Haverford College and Stanford Law, will presumably be alright. With a net worth of $15.5 billion — well within the top 0.1 percent of global wealth owners — the Palantir CEO has enough money and power to live like a feudal lord (and that’s before AI even takes over.)
The rest of us, he indicates, will be stuck on the assembly line, building whatever the tech companies require.
“If you’re a vocational technician, or like, we’re building batteries for a battery company… now you’re very valuable, if not irreplaceable,” Karp insisted. “I mean, y’know, not to divert to my usual political screeds, but there will be more than enough jobs for the citizens of your nation, especially those with vocational training.”
Now, there’s nothing wrong with vocational work or manufacturing. The global economy runs on these jobs. But in a theoretical world so fundamentally transformed by AI that intellectual labor essentially ceases to exist, it’s telling that tech billionaires like Karp see the rest of humanity as their worker bees.
It seems that the AI revolution never seems to threaten those who stand to profit the most from it — just the 99.9 percent of us building their batteries.
I mean… this guy went from his early years as a self-professed socialist who went to protests and believed in social justice… to the most hyper-capitalist “let them eat cake” nutjob that you could imagine. What a world we live in.
It is physically impossible to become a billionaire if you’re not evil.
I don’t understand why we don’t revolt against the billionaires.
Does building a guillotine count as working with your hands?
See guillotines are very romantic. Old-timey. Classically French. That’s all well and good for their historical record, but we’re living in 2026 in America.
I think woodchippers are much more emblematic of our working class.
checks notes yes
And CEOs will be working with their heads, as intended.
Much would be solved if we were to eat one of them. I mean, it works for the chimpanzees…
Removed by mod
Good job condoning terrorism.
I wasn’t condoning.
If that’s the path they want then they should know what it entails.
Hey as long as I can get paid like a knowledge worker, I’d prefer to work with hands.
Yeah, when Karp says “there will be plenty of jobs” he doesn’t mention the wages those jobs will pay…
“Saying the quiet part out loud” moment, because they don’t feel like they need to be quiet. They’re untouchable.
He is lying about its capabilities to protect the stock price
Of course he craps on philosophers. What good is it philosophy for somebody without ethics?
as a CS grad and having worked in software for 10 yrs… this is just delusion.
If he really believed his crap, he would have quit to work as a llama herder by now.
The rest of us, he indicates, will be stuck on the assembly line, building whatever the tech companies require.
Meanwhile…
China is accelerating the rollout of fully automated “dark factories,” where production continues non-stop without lighting, human workers or shift changes. https://e.vnexpress.net/news/tech/tech-news/no-lights-no-workers-ai-powered-dark-factories-are-reshaping-china-s-manufacturing-4921224.html
Another bullshit PR hype. AI hasn’t produced any value yet, all those billions wasted on polluting the earth and literally nothing useful to show.
I’m tired of these techbro cultists without any humanity being in power at all.
This guy seems particularly and consistently bad. Or he just doesn’t have the same filter as the others.
This guy has absolutely no understanding of humanities studies like philosophy and original or creative thought, or how AI works if he thinks those are the fields being threatened. If anything, I’d say his job is more at risk. Maybe librarians.
Dear Alex Karp: Gee, would’ve been a shame if we’d give your money to us and then to the poor. Sincerely, everyone
TL;DR: Tech billionaires like Karp see the rest of humanity as their worker bees.
They see us as livestock.
I studied poetry, painting, and music so that my sons could study mathematics and commerce, and their sons could work long hours on the assembly - without having ever studied anything - so that they can consume slop generated by AI that was pushed on everyone by people who studied commerce, created by people who studied mathematics, and trained on the works of those who studied poetry, painting, and music.
I don’t like where it’s going, and I dislike Palantir, but I also strongly disagree with calling manual work “peasant” labour. There’s nothing wrong with working with your hands.
And many of those jobs still require an understanding of higher math/physics. An uneducated electrician is a dead one.
There is everything wrong with having to work like a peasant because wealth hoarders want to hoard even more wealth
Let’s try not to fight over the false dichotomy a headline is designed to produce.
It’s bad if we have no choice but to work like peasants to survive.
It’s good if you enjoy working with your hands and probably most people would benefit from doing that more, even if you don’t want to do so full time.
The important takeaway from the article is “Fuck that guy”
