First-year students from PALO high school answered briefly, then drew up two lists. In their view, economic factors drive career choices, and jobs disappear because the labour market keeps changing what it asks for. Among the trades coming back they name the carpenter, the plumber and the soldier, a sign of how present the international situation is in young people’s minds.

Their list of disappearing jobs includes cashiers, tailors, shoemakers and gardeners, but also programmers, illustrators, architects and even teachers. Growing jobs include systems engineers, doctors, lawyers, IT and cybersecurity specialists, and many professions that care for the mind: psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists. The lists contain a few tensions: programmers disappear while IT specialists grow, illustrators fade while artists remain. That is a fair picture of how they see AI, replacing some tasks and opening space for others. As the big challenge ahead, they name the energy transition.