As the AI jobs Armageddon approaches, it seems that only plumbers are safe...

What career advice to give your kids has become a hot topic at Silicon Valley dinner parties.

- Matthew Bishop

Tech-savvy guests have found it hard to disagree with Geoffrey Hinton, the British-Canadian academic who last year won the Nobel prize for his groundbreaking work on artificial intelligence (AI). While most intellectual and office-based jobs will be replaced by AI, he said, the technology will find it harder to excel at physical manipulation, “so a good bet would be to be a plumber”.

A rush of job cuts by technology companies, most recently 9,000 by Microsoft, has added to the AI anxiety: has the long-predicted Armageddon of white-collar job destruction finally begun?

In May BT revealed plans to cut up to 55,000 jobs by 2030, in part due to its adoption of AI. Many professional services firms have announced job cuts or hiring freezes, attributing them partly to AI but also to economic uncertainty and cost savings. These include pillars of Britain's knowledge economy: management consultants, accountants, law firms, HR and recruiting businesses, advertising and PR. But not plumbing.