As AI displaces jobs, one of the “godfathers of AI” shared the career advice he’d give to his 4-year-old grandson to prepare him for the future.
“Work on the beautiful human being that you can become. I think that that part of ourselves will persist even if machines can do most of the jobs,” research scientist Yoshua Bengio said on an episode of “The Diary of a CEO” podcast, hosted by Steven Bartlett, posted on December 18.
During the one-hour and forty-minute episode, Bengio said that with companies eager to integrate AI into their workflows, it’s only a matter of time before AI can do most jobs that humans do behind a keyboard. Physical jobs, like plumbing, may eventually be replaced by robots, too, although this may take longer, he said.
Bengio said that even as the world becomes more tech-driven, there will always be a need for human qualities such as love, accepting responsibility, and enjoying contributing to others’ well-being.
“If I’m in a hospital, I want a human being to hold my hand while I’m anxious or in pain. The human touch is going to, I think, take more and more value, as the other skills become more and more automated,” he said.
Alongside Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun, Bengio is known as one of the “godfathers of AI” because of his pioneering research in deep learning and neural networks. He is a professor in the computer science and operations research department at the Université de Montréal, and in June, he launched the AI safety research nonprofit LawZero. In a statement on his website, Bengio said the organization aims to reduce dangerous behaviors associated with agentic AI systems, such as deception.
All three industry leaders have been sharing their advice for how people can pivot their careers to stay relevant in the age of AI.
In a June 2025 episode of “Diary of a CEO,” Hinton said it’s a good time to become a plumber, as it may be a long time before AI disrupts physical jobs. Earlier this month, LeCun told Business Insider he thinks computer science students should focus on foundational courses, like maths and physics, rather than trendy courses on the technology of the day, if they want to break into AI.
