Early AI Jobs Are Already Gone

The job of “prompt engineer” — being able to craft the perfect string of words to get an AI system to generate an intended output — seemed to herald the new entry-level job of the AI era, with an expected annual growth rate of nearly 33%. But, in just two years, it’s already gone the way of the milkman, the switchboard operator, or the lamplighter. Extinct.

The Big Picture: The disappearance of the “prompt engineer” — what looked to be a promising career path for a hot second as ChatGPT and DALL-E overtook culture — shows both how quickly systems are progressing and how new tech can create flash-in-the-pan cottage industries that just want to feed the hype.

Between the Lines: Raise your hand if you’re a prompt engineer?

Crickets? Here’s why:

• Since generative-AI tools have gotten far better at understanding what people want, the role is now “simply an expected skill, not a stand-alone role,” per Fast Company.
• Interestingly, prompt engineers may have never really been a role that companies were keen on hiring anyway, even though plenty of people put “prompt engineer” in their LinkedIn job description.
• In fact, Allison Shrivastava, an economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab, says there weren’t even enough of those open positions for the platform to track, and those roles have become mostly smoke and mirrors today.
• That’s because, according to Interviewing.io CEO Aline Lerner, the appeal for people who wanted to get into AI was that the hypothetical role was “this on-ramp for nontechnical people into this sexy, lucrative field.”

The Future: What is becoming popular in the generative-AI landscape are training courses for employees to learn how to be better prompt engineers within their current positions, such as the one that Nationwide Bank rolled out for its workforce. Some companies, like Microsoft, are even using AI agents to help employees develop better prompts for their generative systems. (Yes, AI helping AI. Wild.)

Prediction: While AI-focused roles like machine learning engineers are on the rise, the decline of the prompt engineer suggests a shift: the most valuable skill in today’s job market may be learning how to use AI to boost productivity in your existing role.