Former OpenAI Researcher: The Most Important Ability in the AI Era Will Shift from "Solving Problems" to "Choosing the Right Problems"

BlockBeats News, July 9th. Phil Chen, former OpenAI researcher, former Google DeepMind engineer, and current founder of an AI startup, recently published an article titled "Career Advice in the Age of AI," sharing his latest insights on career development in the AI era. He believes that as AI models become increasingly proficient at handling "well-defined, quantifiable" complex tasks, the most valuable skill in the next decade will no longer be problem-solving but rather identifying truly important problems and allocating time, funds, and other resources effectively to solve these issues.

Phil Chen stated that AI is rapidly taking over any work that "can define a loss function," and that most exams in traditional education essentially represent a "loss function" with a standard answer. Therefore, the truly valuable jobs in the future will be those that cannot be standardized and evaluated within a model training cycle, requiring human judgment, creativity, and long-term decision-making skills.

He advised young professionals to focus on investing in three of the scarcest resources—time, relationships, and reputation. Compared to capital, an excellent professional network and industry reputation built over the long term are more difficult to replicate and will be the most critical competitive advantages in the future. He recommended consistently delivering high-quality results and allowing reputable and equally outstanding individuals to recognize one's work, thereby establishing a professional reputation.

Regarding the question of whether future Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) will replace knowledge workers, Phil Chen holds a relatively optimistic view. He believes that even if ASI emerges, humans will still have an irreplaceable advantage in defining objectives, selecting worthwhile problems to focus on, and allocating resources. He also emphasized that what will truly determine an individual's long-term value is judgment, professional skills, and industry influence, rather than mere execution efficiency.

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