Take This Job and Love It: Why Mentorship and Human Connection Matter in the Age of AI

I’ve heard the phrase, “AI won’t take your job, but someone using it will” dozens of times in the last couple years. I agreed with the sentiment until a few months ago, when it became clear to me that, not only was AI job displacement possible, it was already happening and most people were unaware.

That changed earlier this week when Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic (maker of the Claude LLM), said the quiet part out loud. In an interview with Axios, he shared his prediction that as many as one in two white collar jobs will be replaced by AI, potentially leading to 20% unemployment within one to five years.

Within that 50% potential job loss are roles at all levels, but entry-level positions are already being particularly impacted. New college grads are heading out into a professional landscape that is changing so much and so quickly that it’s hard to give them the time-worn advice of, “Go out and get a job, learn everything you can, take on extra work, be indispensable, move up the ladder.”

What even is “the ladder” anymore?

Return to Office: Old School is Cool Again

A couple years ago, one of my nieces graduated from college and asked my advice on getting started in her career. I told her that, despite all the comfort and convenience of work-from-home set-ups, she should prioritize a job where she could be in the office with people at least some of the time.

As a more (ahem) senior professional, I know the intrinsic value of people being physically together while they work. There are passing conversations in the hallway, impromptu lunches, emergencies needing immediate attention, etc. It’s these moments where young professionals learn how to work, to navigate office politics, to identify opportunities and seize them.

And they are becoming ever more important as AI works its way into workplaces. A 22-year-old sitting in their small apartment, surrounded by distractions, will miss almost every opportunity to learn or do something that will benefit their career. That same 22-year-old – faceless and nameless to the CEO – becomes very easy to replace with AI. “I can save 20% on staffing-related costs? Sold!”

This is starting to sound like an anti-work-from-home post. It’s not. I love work-from-home and believe strongly that it should be an option for as many workers as possible, but there is simply no replacement for in-person human interaction.

Mentorship: The Irreplaceable Human Capability

When I was doing a talk at HMPS in Orlando a few weeks ago, an audience member asked me what AI meant for the future of young professionals – how would they learn and grow and progress in their careers if their every interaction is with or managed by an AI?

I thought about it for a second and reflected on my company name: Loop. I named it that because I believe humanity can benefit from AI, but only if humans are “in the loop” every step of the way.

My answer to her question was mentorship. Formalized, structured, ubiquitous mentorship, aimed at helping young professionals succeed in a rapidly changing world, yes, but also aimed at the senior colleagues themselves, who are trying to navigate career anxieties caused by quotes from people like Dario Amodei. No one has this figured out yet, so leaning into our shared humanity to help us arrive at shared answers seems worthwhile.

AI and the Future of Work

Back to my niece. She took my advice and accepted an in-person job at a non-profit in Buffalo, New York. She’s had the moments young professionals need: she’s helped plan board meetings, listened in as senior executives discuss strategy and growth, made herself available for projects she may otherwise never been aware of.

In other words, she’s leaning in.

So it was a very proud uncle moment recently when she asked me if I could help her plan a discussion for her office about, you guessed it, AI. The team gets together regularly, with one person responsible for picking a topic and leading a conversation about it, and she wanted to have a conversation with them on their attitudes about AI.

We talked on the phone a few times, me sharing some basics about AI, she confidently presenting her views and creating a framework to guide the team’s discussion.

When the time came for the session, there was some sort of minor office emergency, which meant the 30 minutes she had planned to spend on the topic was suddenly now only 15 minutes.

She adjusted, went with the flow, and did her thing. She was, in her own way, mentoring her more senior colleagues, helping them contend with the realities of AI.

In a world where AI is reshaping the professional landscape at every level, it’s the irreplaceable human connections – mentorship, in-person collaboration, shared learning, and adjusting on the fly to having half the time you thought you were going to have – that will help us not only survive but thrive in the age of AI, especially for the next generation entering the workforce.