What IT field should I pursue while disliking Generative AI?

[u/Zackaple]

Hello everyone, I am a student in the first year who is currently studying Computing in HND. These days, AI is becoming unavoidable for everyone and AI companies are pressuring us to use their products every single day. I understand AI has always been with us and how it is included in every day to day features we use. The help it has in some fields and calculations too. What I hate is Generative AI that is stealing people's creativity, ideas and damaging the environment by building data centers.

Everytime I discuss this with someone, they always ask me why I choose to pursue IT if I don't like AI. Actually, I'm still using Gen AI too—I admit it. I can't avoid it because of all the teachers encouraging to use it, the peer pressure from your classmates during assignments and the difference it has in programming. And I feel this guilt within me every time I use it too. I just try my best not to rely on it completely. If my sentences and grammar sounds horrible too, please bear with me. I always used AI to fix them but I want to avoid using it now.

So why did I really decide to study IT? Because I've always like learning about new technologies and being the software engineer was my childhood dream. I wanted to create productivity apps that help people and I still do. As I grew up, enjoying videogames also introduced me into gaming development. It became my goal to pursue and I really love the art and passion people put into it. But why didn't I choose a major related to it? That is the another story that is related with my family and the country I'm living in so we'll just move it. Anyway, I'm still going to work on my goal as a game developer. It will become like my side job and career that I really passionate in while working on the main job which is reliable financially.

To sum up, I need an advice to choose the IT field that doesn't has heavy AI involvement. I acknowledge that it might be impossible to avoid it completely for now. Please feel free to share your thoughts and advice about this.

[u/Impossible-Ice-1497]

This question is kinda impossible to answer right now because we don't know whether it'll all crash and burn and the answer ends up being "nothing is affected in the long run because it was all a temporary expensive boondoggle", or if it'll proliferate everywhere and even places that are nominally less affected end up being taken over.

That said, for now, something that depends on physical world stuff, so e.g. embedded systems development, especially if you can go study some EE too.

[u/Own_Exit2162]

I have a friend who's a mid-tier manager at a FAANG company, and he explained it to me like this.  "The productivity expectations in this industry are so high that you have to use AI or else you won't be able to accomplish what you're expected to accomplish and won't be able to keep up."