Mike Rowe on AI: ‘In the Right Hands, It’ll Be a Tool for Progress’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Mike Rowe is cautiously “skeptimistic” about the effect AI might have on skilled trades.
“In short, I think it’s going to help attract more young people into the trades, and that’s a very positive thing,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “But more broadly, I still think of AI like a smartphone, or a firearm. In the right hands, it’ll be a tool for progress like nothing we’ve ever seen before. In the wrong hands, the capacity for mischief will be amplified to infinity and beyond.”
Rowe explained that, seeing as how AI technology is clearly here to stay whether we like it or not, he is focusing on working with companies that use AI “in ways that compliment mikeroweWORKS.”
“I’m still ‘skeptimistic,’ in general,” he said. “But if I was looking for something to lose sleep over, I’d consider the math surrounding the skills gap. A 5:2 ratio of retiring skilled workers is not sustainable. Imagine a workforce with no skilled labor. Imagine a country where new homes take too long to build and cost too much to buy. And old homes never get fixed. Imagine a country where bridges and roads are constantly under construction, and the rest of our infrastructure is literally falling apart around us, because nobody wants to learn a skill that’s truly in demand.”
He continued, “I’m afraid we’re rushing toward a kind of Vocational Idiocracy, and if we don’t do something to inspire, motivate, persuade, induce, cajole, or otherwise encourage the next generation to truly become the Toolbelt Generation, then we’re going to need companies…to help us rethink and retool the way homes get built, along with pretty much everything else.”
The spread of AI has many Gen Zers more interested in vocational work that won’t be affected by AI tech.
“These jobs are here to stay,” Lincoln Tech CEO Scott Shaw said while appearing on Fox Business. “Since COVID, people are kind of catching the wave and understanding the need for trades.”
A report from Newsweek found that “community colleges with a focus on vocational programs saw registrations climb 16 percent, an increase of 112,000 students.”
Rowe is a vocal supporter of trade schools. Movieguide® previously reported:
DIRTY JOBS’ Mike Rowe is detailing the “shift” from universities to trade schools as many young people decide the rising cost of college isn’t worth it.
“I think we’re going to be entering a whole new time, where the smart money is going to be,” Rowe said during an interview with Fox Business, encouraging young people to “Go to a trade school and then learn a trade.”
“People are starting to pay attention,” Rowe continued. “It’s a bit like turning a tanker around. You’re talking about perceptions and attitudes, stigmas, stereotypes, all sorts of things. People in a lot of ways need to be deprogrammed about this idea that the best path for most people is a four-year degree, coincidentally, the most expensive path.”
He continued, “We talk about [college] in terms of an investment, but people are starting to smell a rat there, too. I think more and more people are starting to look at that diploma on the wall and seeing it for what it actually is, which is a receipt.”
“I think Gen Z is just starting to realize they’ve been pushed in a direction that, frankly, doesn’t lead to a place they want to go,” Rowe concluded.
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