I think people underestimate how AI will impact the Philippines in the coming years. There's a move from the US to have BPO industries be focused on prioritizing local labor. And companies in the US are already trying to downsize their human resources in exchange for automation with AI.
The Philippine economy isn't built on agriculture, it's cash cow is through providing labor elsewhere (via OFW's) and BPO industries. Since BPO industries will be the first to be impacted by AI integration, I'm expecting more lay offs in the coming years. OFW's that have jobs that can still be replaced by AI are also threatened. Imagine the decrease in remittances abroad? expect the peso to weaken and this further strengthens the cost of import and adding more to local inflation.
It's going to be a domino effect and the country isn't equipped with the infrastructure for manufacturing services (an opportunity that could have been grabbed decades ago) to absorb the blow of unemployment. We're seeing threats to recession in real time and there's not much buzz on local media to cover it, why?
Well, if you have a nation that has low financial literacy and the mainstream masses are easily caught up with political drama of the week, you get a problem brewing unnoticed until shit hits the fan.
Imagine millions of people being laid off, those that have a remote work setup, VA's and freelancers with clients outside PH slowly entering the unemployment statistics. The government doesn't have a program to address that upcoming crisis because it still doesn't have an answer to today's current unemployment and underemployment problem. Everyone should be worried.
At an individual level, I have job security since my job even in pre-AI and post AI era is still going to be in demand. But this doesn't mean I can rest easy through retirement because the Peso depreciation on top of existing high taxes is the real menace.
I'd say my income lets be live middle class but give it 3 decades more and I'll be in poverty if I don't do something. The calculations above are inaccurate but it gives me a close to the real estimate since inflation isn't computed based on how much the actual goods are being sold right from then and now, it's only an estimate based on the basket of goods. So if the price of chicken isn't weighted heavy on the index, then that couldn't represent the actual inflation of the price of chicken now.
I'm saying everyone that isn't well off financially now will have a hard time living in their retirement years even with pension. However, I understand that young dumb and broke as an expression exists for a reason. People can't see the future consequences of their actions unless they live in the moment regretting it in real time.
I tend to sell myself the fear of living long because as much as my existential dread compels me to think whatever I might or might not have any meaning, what if I'm still alive by then figuring things out, broke and old. So even if I'm living close to financially free, I'm still treating everything like a rat race because there's no escaping.
No one became financially free living on their wages (without extra fund injections from other sources or old money). And the pension experiment the Philippines started decades ago are showing how it's not feasible to live with the current rates monthly because nobody foresaw how bad inflation is going to be decades forward.
My realistic and pessimistic sides are already screaming a depressing future economically in the Philippines and electing a new leader wouldn't be able to fix what several terms have already destroyed.
Learn a skill that is relevant even in an AI era and start targeting careers that make you in demand in an AI era. That's my piece of advice to an older version decades ago. By luck, I happen to be in a career path that covers that so I got that going for me which is nice.
Thanks for your time.
Like other developing nations I think this is what happen when society doesn't take technology seriously. When the majority of jobs are not tech related or very low level tech, people sentiment tend to reduce the impact of what it can do. They don't consider them as "real jobs". But once that the employers shift, is when it hits people's reality.
I hope more people can anticipate this and become competitive on the tech space so they can anticipate this shift.
The shift requires investment in infrastructure and training people. If I want to examine it under the PH scene, why would investors want their money parked here when they can put it in some other country with a better potential for growth and already set with their infrastructure. The only quick fix (in years) I see is training AI competent graduates than infrastructure.
Talent, most infrastructure is internet based not physically based. Unless you are talking about connectivity and fiber optics. But the rest is up to the people to build, code and sell. Most of the information and tools are freely available online.
And you can't force to train anybody, which is my point. If people don't truly believe that knowing coding or crypto or AI is the future, they won't compete.
Unfortunately most people copy what they see, and most people see YouTube influencers, Instagram models and food delivery more than successful coders, crypto investors or AI entrepreneurs.
But even on a wider scope, most people don't think engineering is a worthwhile career. Maybe because of their old school parents or just because they are scared of math. But there is a prevalent sense of difficulty when jumping into coding.
😄 The urge to just start farming gets to me day by day. I am leaning towards agriculture now and I am on the lookout for AI-proof jobs 😄 which is something I am currently doing and building now.
Hopefully people from overseas haven't been buying up your arable land, apparently that's something that's been happening a bit here x_x
there's quite a lot of people here when selling houses prefer to sell to overseas buyers because "they get more money" and then wonder why it's so expensive to buy another house
I'd like this too but I'd need a large plot of fertile land, some tools and more people to get onboard on the idea if I want it to be sustainable off grid. I see value in this route if nothing else works.
I accidentally hit a job that can't be done by AI either (part of it potentially could be but I haven't tested it out yet and reading hilarious online accounts of what happens in related fields when you just blindly input stuff and don't check what the AI outputs before using it has greatly reduced my desire to). Sadly mine is much harder to live off unless I go more pro with it which is another thing I don't really want to do x_x
I want to survive the age of AI and the world is changing fast.
What's the job called?
I need 3 things from a job: the satisfaction, health, and pays well.
Now I want to find: the satisfaction, health, pays well, and AI resistant.