Alex Karp, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of AI defense technology company Palantir, had a top-notch humanities education.
Karp graduated from Haverford College, an elite liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, with a degree in philosophy. He then attended Stanford Law School and later earned his Ph.D. in neoclassical social theory from a top German university.
“It’s a very powerful education,” Karp said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday.
In the age of AI, such academic paths will be doomed, Karp told BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who was leading the discussion.
AI “will disrupt jobs in the humanities,” Karp said.
“You probably went to an elite school and studied philosophy. I hope you have other skills,” Karp said. Because it’s very difficult to bring that skill set to market.
Palantir’s CEO said that once people with humanities backgrounds secure a job, they’ll probably be able to keep it, but people with engineering and other vocational skills will be most in demand.
“Batteries are extremely valuable, if not irreplaceable, because you can rapidly turn them into something different than what they were before,” he said, citing the example of people who make batteries at battery companies.
“There will be more than enough jobs for your people, especially those in training,” Karp told Fink.
But not everyone in Davos agreed with technology leaders’ assessment of the future of jobs.
Financial executives at the global forum told Business Insider’s Dan DeFrancesco that liberal arts degrees could become the new hot commodity. As AI takes on more demanding financial analysis, the skill sets that executives prioritize for young new hires are also changing. Critical and creative thinkers are back in the spotlight.
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei also touched on hiring during a joint panel discussion Tuesday, saying entry-level hiring at both companies is already declining due to AI.
Amodei said software and coding roles at Anthropic have declined among both junior and mid-level positions within the company.
