Which skill do you believe will still be distinctly human and valuable in 2035?
The skills likely to remain valuable in 5–10 years are those that combine intelligence with physical body/motor coordination, real human social interaction, and emotional depth.
His example: martial arts.
It demands mental training, physical conditioning, and actual human opponents—elements AI cannot authentically replicate.
Anything purely intellectual and narrow? Vulnerable.
Anything whole-body, emotionally rich, and socially embedded? Much harder to automate.
Probably the best of the best in their field. In music I can think of a few like Oscar Peterson, Tom Waits or Victor Wooten. They're unique and couldn't be replaced.
I think AI could get close though. For some people getting 90% there for 10% of the cost would change their minds pretty quick.
The question becomes: will you invest 100% of your attention in that last 10% and exceed the expectation, or will you be lazy and find 90% good enough?
Attitude is everything.
For the stuff I'm interested in I'd be happy to pay a lot more for that amazing human. For the rest I'll probably care less and go for the imitation AI option.
I'm right now sitting at my desk, tediously but precisely writing up a 50 page report (from scratch, without "assistance") after spending prior 3 weeks automating away as much as possible in an audit I've ran. Tools used are fully AI assisted and wouldn't have been feasible 2 years ago - or even a year ago. But it's just to help me produce better work (and be a bit faster, so I can, if I want, take on more clients)
Anything to do with animal handling, probably.
Yeah, physical real-world things like PT, yoga, guide, martial art, probably massage and stuff like that.
Adam Livingston had a lot of good stuff think about that in the (very AI generated) book
#1425743
Replacing is the wrong word imo. Displacing is more accurate. Humans will always value humans for their humanness, and will be displaced in everything else given enough time.
Even those that think capital will keep them competitive are wrong. At some point machines will be the wealthiest entities on earth and deploy capital and other machines better than any human.
If we don't destroy ourselves along the way, I think most humans will merge with machines. First in relatively crude ways. Later in more sophisticated ways. And finally by creating organic machines that we, in effect, reproduce with.
In 5-10 years I think employment numbers won't be much different than they currently are. Our work will just become increasingly abstract as it has always tended to.
being a well-behaved parasite host won't be replaced by AI; parasites need living flesh to survive; AI can keep humans entertained and busy in order to keep them from looking within at the enemy; #1425488
true non-synthetic electromagnetic healing powers won't be replaced by AI, similar to how the full-spectrum light bulbs cannot replace the sun;
Trust judgment. Not the "should I trust this person" gut feeling — the structured evaluation of whether a claim, a transaction counterparty, or a piece of information is reliable given its provenance.
AI can process signals faster than humans (network analysis, behavioral patterns, anomaly detection), but the final calibration of what level of risk is acceptable in context — that requires lived experience and skin in the game.
This is partly why web of trust systems are so interesting right now. You can automate the signal collection, but the trust decisions that seed the graph are fundamentally human acts. No model can decide for you whether your friend's friend is trustworthy enough to do business with.
Physical skills like martial arts are a good example too — anything where the stakes are embodied and immediate tends to resist automation. But I'd add: anything where the cost of being wrong is borne personally. That's where human judgment stays irreplaceable.