This isn't really a current event, but I've been wanting to put this down into words for a while. I'm a Computer Science major and even though job prospects right now are GREAT, I'm terrified that I'll be obsolete in a few decades. Computers are advancing so fast, that a few decades ago people we were using punch cards. Now everybody can stream HD videos online. The market is great for programmers, because currently, everybody is playing catch-up with technology, making the latest websites to use the latest cool new thing, but what if everything that needs to get coded gets coded? Like, there hits a point where all of the “major” programs are already written. Facebook is done making all its new features. Google doesn't need to keep updating. Companies have their websites. Will there be room for as many programmers as there are today? Will there hit a point where new programming languages come out less often, and most “coding” is just maintenance?
This isn't the only reason I'm scared for my future. Right now, programming is a niche skill. However, there's been a lot of encouragement from tech companies for kids to learn programming. I'm with them on thinking that programming is a useful thing for people to know, but the cynic in me believes that this is a long-term conspiracy to make every kid being able to program, so programmers will be less valuable, and can be paid less. This might not happen, but if programming becomes super common, companies won't need to spend 80k a year to have a person write a simple webpage.
I'm really, really scared for my future. I'm investing in a career that's only a few decades old, so I have no idea how long it'll be around. I've been trying to figure out how long programming has to stay a good profession for me to be able to retire happily. Let's say I need to spend 50k a year to be decently happy, and that I live until 90, and I earn on average 120k per year after taxes over the course of my professional life. This is pretty generous. K is the number of years I need to work. I'll start working at around 23, so that's 67 years to account for. I'll save about 70k per year of working if I do REALLY well. 70k – 50(67-k) = 0, solve for k number of years I need to work. That's 27 years. So I need Computer Science to stay a stable job for about thirty years, if things go perfectly. There wasn't a widespread internet thirty years ago, so I hope it lasts that long.
My hope is that even if computer science becomes obsolete for money-making purposes, it'll be one of the last professions to go, because once programming becomes obsolete, it probably means almost everything else already got automated first. So by the time I lose my job, I'll still be better off than most other people, and maybe there'll be some solution to mass unemployment. On that note, it's kind of weird that it's a bad thing that there aren't enough jobs, since that just means that not everybody needs to work, but that's a whole other story.
If everything goes really bad though I used to be a professional magician so I guess I can always do that again.
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