‘Something is happening in the industry’

• UC Berkeley professor Hany Farid says computer science students are struggling to find jobs.

• Farid said Berkeley grads used to have “the run of the place. That is not happening today.”

• The advice Farid gives to students about how to stay ahead has also changed.

Computer science went from a future-proof career to an industry in upheaval in a shockingly small amount of time.

“For people like your son, by the way, who four years ago were promised, go study computer science, it’s going to be a great career. It is future-proof — that changed in four years,” UC Berkeley professor Hany Farid said during a recent episode of Nova’s “Particles of Thought” podcast. “That is astonishing.”

It’s too easy to just blame AI, though, Farid said.

“Something is happening in the industry,” he said. “I think it’s a confluence of many things. I think AI is part of it. I think there’s a thinning of the ranks that’s happening, that’s part of it, but something is brewing.”

Farid and the host, astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi, discussed how Oluseyi’s son, a senior studying computer science, is struggling to find a job. Farid says he’s seeing the same thing unfold at Berkeley, home to one of the top CS programs.

“Our students typically had five internship offers throughout their first four years of college,” Farid said. “They would graduate with exceedingly high salaries, multiple offers. They had the run of the place. That is not happening today. They’re happy to get one job offer.”

The debate over the future of CS is playing out around Silicon Valley. The rise of vibecoding and AI’s ability to create software by itself has only exacerbated these concerns. OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor has said that students learn concepts in computer science that go beyond mere coding languages.

Farid, one of the world’s experts on deepfake videos, said he is often asked for advice. He said what he tells students has changed.

“What I used to tell people is you want a broad education,” Farid said. “You should know about physics, and language, and history, and philosophy, but then you have to go deep, deep — like deep, deep into one thing, become really, really good at one thing. Now, I think I’m telling people to be good at a lot of different things because we don’t know what the future holds.”

Like many in the AI space, Farid said that those who use breakthrough technologies will outlast those who don’t.

“I don’t think AI is going to put lawyers out of business, but I think lawyers who use AI will put those who don’t use AI out of business,” he said. “And I think you can say that about every profession.”

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