One of the pioneers of artificial intelligence at Google is warning the potential doctors and lawyers of tomorrow that AI might steal their futures.

In an interview with Business Insider, Jad Tarifi — the 42-year-old founder of Google's first generative AI team who left in 2021 to found his own startup, Integral AI — suggested that ever-improving AI capabilities may soon make getting advanced degrees in law or medicine an exercise in futility.

With so many people seeking further education as they get edged out of the job market by AI, Tarifi offered a different perspective: that nobody "should ever do a PhD unless they are obsessed with the field."

The AI veteran also told BI that he'd advise caution to anyone looking to get into the fields of medicine and law, which take years — and often hundreds of thousands of dollars — to complete a degree.

"In the current medical system, what you learn in medical school is so outdated and based on memorization," Tarifi told the website. Seeking advanced medical or law degrees is, to his thinking, tantamount to "throwing away" several years of one's life.

"I have a PhD in AI," he added, "but I don't know how the latest microprocessor works."

While some would suggest that seeking postgraduate degrees in AI might help secure their futures as the technology takes over, the former Googler suggested that folks might want to pump the brakes on that, too.

"Even things like applying AI to robotics will be solved" by the time you complete a PhD, Tarifi continued. "So either get into something niche like AI for biology, which is still in its very early stages, or just don't get into anything at all."

Like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who wrongfully insists that AI has already reached "PhD-level" intelligence, Tarifi clearly has very high regard for where the technology is today and where it will soon be headed. As he explained to BI, he finds these alleged advances to be all the more reason to double down on a Silicon Valley version of what it means to be human.

"The best thing to work on is more internal," Tarifi told BI. "Meditate. Socialize with your friends. Get to know yourself emotionally."

He might want to add "check in with reality" to that milquetoast list of recommendations, too, given that current AI technology has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be very bad at lawyering and even worse at doctoring.

Then again, anyone setting off to get a medical degree today is staring down the barrel of nearly a decade of education before they're a full doctor, so it's possible Tarifi is right, if AI continues improving at the rate it has been.

On the other hand, of course, until then we're all going to have to live in a world with a looming physician shortage — so if Tarifi is wrong, and AI does stall out, patients around the world are going to be in deep trouble.

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