In 2023, prompt engineering, or training AI tools using specific prompts and instructions, was the hottest job in tech. AI was moving from Silicon Valley to Main Street at lightning speed, and Big Tech needed these roles to train its large language models (LLMs). Companies were paying six-figure salaries for roles.
Now, AI can do it by itself.
The Wall Street Journal reports that prompt engineers are already becoming obsolete.
“Two years ago, everybody said, ‘Oh, I think prompt engineer is going to be the hot job,'” Jared Spataro, chief marketing officer of AI at Work at Microsoft, told the WSJ. “It’s not turning out to be true at all.”
Spataro told the outlet that as the latest LLMs have evolved, these AI tools are more conversational and “aware of context” with the ability to ask follow-up questions, removing the need for “the perfect prompt.”
There are still about 3,000 jobs on Indeed with “prompt engineer” in the job description or title (some are listed as “AI engineer” with similar duties) at press time, though Indeed’s VP of AI, Hannah Calhoon, told the WSJ it is flatlining.
AI taking over jobs is not anything new. In 2023, Goldman Sachs estimated that AI could automate 300 million full-time jobs, while McKinsey wrote that up to 375 million workers may be displaced by AI by 2030.
It’s ironic, though, that after so many recent reports about AI taking over jobs, from Wall Street to factory workers, AI is now taking jobs from the people who made it.
