Research
CSF to launch AI Careers Study
Most of the conversation about AI and work is about subtraction — which jobs disappear. That question matters, but it is not the one that helps a sixteen-year-old in Englewood decide what to study. The more useful question is what gets built next, and who gets to build it.
The Chicago STEM Foundation is launching a study to answer that for this city specifically, but also the world. Which roles are emerging where AI is a tool rather than a threat? What do those roles actually require, and what workforce training is needed?
Our approach
We are less interested in cataloging today's postings than in identifying work that AI makes newly possible. — the roles that stabilize systems that people depend on and push capability forward.
- Grid and energy operations. Balancing renewable supply against demand in real time is a control problem AI is good at, and someone has to build, tune, and audit those systems.
- Clinical and public health support. Triage, imaging review, and outbreak detection, where the operator's judgement is what makes the model safe to use.
- Infrastructure and environmental monitoring. Water quality, structural integrity, air sensing — chronically under-resourced work that becomes tractable with automated analysis.
- Advanced manufacturing. Machinists and technicians working alongside vision systems, a role that pays well and does not require a four-year degree.
- Model auditing and data stewardship. Somebody has to check whether a system works fairly for the people it is used on. Right now, too few of those somebodies come from the communities most affected.
All of these are needed by society and will empower Chicagoans to excel and grow as we usher in not only an age of AI, but one of Quantum Computing as well.
What the study will produce
- Which of these roles metro-area employers are genuinely hiring for now and over the next decade, with names attached
- The real entry requirements, as opposed to the ones in the job description
- Where the local pipeline breaks, and for whom
- What technology are entreprenuers building that will start new industries for workers
- What preparation do students and educational institutions need to implement to be successful
- What our own programs should teach as a result
That last point is our motivation. A foundation that works with schools and students, and runs robotics and career programs has an obvious incentive to conclude that robotics and career programs are the answer. We will publish the findings in full, including anything suggesting we are off base with our hypothesis.
The question is not which jobs AI takes. It is which jobs it makes possible, and whether our workers are in the room when they are created.
Findings will be published here as the work progresses.