Oxford Economist: AI Skills Are Worth MORE Than A Master’s Degree

What happens when AI starts removing the entry-level work people traditionally needed to become experts?In this conversation, Dr. Fabian Stephany explores what real labour-market data says about AI, jobs, wages, and the skills that are becoming more valuable. He explains why people with AI skills are already earning a premium, why junior workers may face the biggest disruption, and why expertise becomes even more important as routine work gets automated.But this isn’t just a story about jobs disappearing.It’s about a deeper shift:🔹 What happens when AI can do the repetitive work people once used to learn their profession? 🔹 Could AI widen inequality between people who know how to use it and those who get left behind? 🔹 And with millions of baby boomers leaving the workforce, are we actually heading toward a shortage of workers rather than a shortage of jobs?At the centre of the discussion is a harder question:If AI changes how people build expertise, which skills should the next generation actually spend years developing?Because the biggest risk may not be that AI takes every job, but that we fail to develop the people needed for the jobs that remain.