The recent conversation around artificial intelligence has brought Fox Business’s “How America Works” host Mike Rowe back to “the same old broken record” he’s been repeating for the last 20 years: learn a skill that will is in demand.
“It’s hard to put feces back in a swan, especially with something like this. So yeah, I’m concerned, but I really don’t know what the panic is going to do to the normal person who’s seeing that.” How is this going to affect my career, my life, my ability to provide for my family,” Rowe said on a recent episode of “Fox & Friends.”
That’s when the former “Dirty Jobs” host returned to the advice he’s been giving for decades. “Learn something that can’t be replaced by a robot or artificial intelligence. Those jobs are now openly open rights — plumber, steamfitter, pipe fitter, mechanic, electrician.
Rowe pointed to his own organization, the MicrowaveWorks Foundation, as proof that there are lucrative careers to be made in the business professions. He cited that, of the roughly 1,700 people his foundation has trained, many of them making six figures, “they’re all in skilled trades.”
“I can use any opportunity to pat the country on the shoulder and say, ‘Oh look. Yeah, let’s worry about the things we have to worry about. But let’s do something here Which makes sense,” Rowe said. “Brother, we took shop class from high school 40 years ago, and we’re still whipping up a whirlwind. When we did that, we started telling the kids that the best way for the most people is the most expensive way. We have to wait. We either stop or we perish.
Rowe first became a household name in the early 2000s with Discovery’s “Dirty Jobs”. In each episode, he did a different tough, weird or disgusting job across the country, shining a light on the less-than-glorious businesses that keep America going. In the years that followed, Rowe became an outspoken advocate for skilled workers.
