I’m kind of sick of being a dev. I hate AI with a passion.
I hate the hallucinations, I hate slop, I hate megacrops, I hate the environmental impacts, I hate the massive costs. I could go on but you get the picture.
At work I often times have to review vibe code slop from people who clock in 9 to 5 and don’t give a fuck (I respect that, I just wish your fucking code wasn’t slop)
I’m sick of it, I’m sick of hearing about AI tooling or new models or bro agentic actions bro based on your documentation bro.
I want to switch careers, so which career is not ruined by AI?
Join us, become a tradie. Get a company vehicle. Work with your hands. Become enough of an expert in your trade that you can tell customers to go fuck themselves if they’re dicks. Have every company in the area be desperate to hire you because every trade is short handed. Work with people who barely understand the concept of a computer. Spend half of every paycheck on milwalkee packout tool boxes. Never have to work with AI again.
My preference is HVAC-R but plumber or electrician are also good choices. Building automation may seem attractive but then you’re getting close to the AI danger zone again.
Largely agreed, but if large-scale social problems flood the trades then we have another problem on our hands.
Ironically, the three trades you listed are in high demand right now specifically because of the rapid rollout of the data centers needed to power AI.
A couple of thoughts on this as a union electrician: for starters AI is absolutely having an (arguably negative) impact on manpower fulfillment. In my area the massive expansion of data centers is causing a manpower shortage for all projects not funded by massive tech companies. This is complicated because it’s inflating income for tradesmen due to demand, but it’s also pressuring workers into ridiculous schedules (think 4x10s, 2x8s, and most Sundays) and is forcing contractors that aren’t running data center work to completely rework their payment structure and bid practices. Many of these sites are also a 1-2 hour commute for a large number of tradies. A lot of these guys have been gaslit for decades into thinking working more OT somehow makes them a better person.
Beyond that, while I haven’t personally seen it yet AI will absolutely begin worming its way into design; a process already riddled with issues and errors largely due to time constraints. Clients are going to want work done faster and cheaper, which will pressure design teams into using AI tools in the name of expediency, which will lead to more errors in the construction process, leading to inflated costs and likely problematic installations.
That’s not even getting into the future of AI robotics which absolutely will be impacting our tradesmen directly in the near future.
It’s coming for us too.
I’m not an electrician, but I have a relative that is. You nailed it. We’ve got a couple DCs going up near by, and he was asked to commit to a 2 year commitment for just one of them, working exactly the hours you said. He agreed because I think they are paying double time for all OT, and that’s good money. They asked if he wanted to sign on for the other DC but he declined for the obvious time reasons. It’s definitely had an effect on available workers for other projects since seemingly all hand are on deck.
I’m not familiar with the architecting process, but I can absolutely see how AI will be, if not already, involved with generating plans. It will shit something out faster than anyone could create it, but it will lose that value in review and the inevitable mistakes that make it through. AI is a cancer
I’m thinking about finishing out my career with that kind of transition.
I’ve always done various office work and have been good at it, but I know I’m on borrowed time.
At some point in the next 1-3 years, they’ll automate 90%+ of what I’m doing, and I’ll be out the door. And being late 40s, with the job market being what it is, and admittedly me not skilling up much most of the last decade or so… I have I just don’t have what’s needed to get back to work in favorable conditions once that inevitable canning happens.
Fortunately, I have a friend of the family who’s a long time HVAC guy, and the company he works for has been short handed for quite a while. I figure if I start training up in the very near future, I’ll be able to transition over without too many issues, and If I’m careful, I won’t have to beat myself up too much in the decade or so before I retire.
I think the powers that be have an ultimate goal of combining AI and robotics to automate the trades too, but they are much further away on that… it should be a safe space for long enough.
i went into a dying trade in my 20s ugh and stuck with it now i’m too old to start a new one outside of maybe CDL. so yeah make sure you are physically up to it first (i am in very good shape for my age and look 10 years younger but i would be obliterated by the multiple year “break in” apprentice period again and likely would just get in a fist fight with someone trying to “break me” and destroy them and go to prison or vice versa)
Maybe I just skipped it because I was a factory tech for a while but there was no “breaking” in my experience. The worst we have is a tendancy to throw aprentices into being full techs a bit too quick sometimes.
i’m sure it varies place to place, might have something to do with where i reside
i have family that could fast track me into commercial HVAC tech (which i could absolutely handle) and skip the grunt work/crawlspace/installation stuff but they are a bit too far away for me to leverage the connection
Yeah, that’s probably a lot of it. Around me everywhere is so short handed that companies will bend over backwards to get/keep people. Beating up on newbies is a great way for them to have no employees because those newbies could just as easily get a job at a dozen other outfits the next day.
Also, I hate to tell you this but, commercial doesn’t necissarily keep you out of crawlspaces. It’s more rare but the few crawlspaces that you do wind up having to deal with wind up being much bigger (and not in the good way).
And say goodbye to your knees!