Nobel Prize Winner Cautions on Rush Into STEM After Rise of AI

  • Labor economist sees demand for skills beyond science and math
  • ‘Empathetic’ and creative skills are likely to thrive

Christopher Pissarides

Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

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A Nobel Prize-winning labor market economist has cautioned younger generations against piling into studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects, saying that “empathetic” and creative skills may thrive in a world dominated by artificial intelligence.

Christopher Pissarides, professor of economics at the London School of Economics, said that workers in certain IT jobs risk sowing their “own seeds of self-destruction“ by advancing AI that will eventually take the same jobs in the future.