alt Hacker News> One sunny spot I have is that life is very long.
Not sure exactly where you are in it, but as a 53 year old I disagree. The younger I was the less likely I would have been to disagree but imo/ime the older you get the faster it feels like it is flying by.
> and a full pivot is alright
The AI-related existential dread is that it is very unclear what a pivot looks like when the ground under everything is shifting all at once.
The shifting is certainly a lot more obvious in our career than some others, but all of that shift (so far) happened more or less in a mere 10 months and is accelerating. And I don't think it is very likely that our career will stay anomalous for very long in terms of how much AI impact there is.
yeah, you're down to like 3/4 a career left, it makes sense that you feel that way. Less runway ought to feel different.
I do agree that a safe 'next' is unclear. But I also think if ai truly hits all knowledge work as hard as it might we're looking at up to 50% unemployment. Frankly there is no point career planning at all in that scenario. We will all have much larger problems.
And if it doesn't, then pivoting to some field with a combination of rewarding work and 'enough' pay seems sensible enough.