Hustling for work experience and learning from coworkers has been key to building a successful career for decades. Mark Cuban says that’s bound to change.
The tech billionaire and former “Shark Tank” investor said in an X post on Thursday that he expects the “next great AI application” to be a “job simulator.”
“How employees gain experience in a future AI world is going to be far different from today,” he wrote.
“Employees won’t have as many touch points in the company to gain knowledge and experience from. That’s where judgement has historically come from.”
Cuban predicted that “much like race car drivers and pilots,” future generations of workers will be trained using simulations, intended to teach them how to navigate real-life scenarios in the workplace.
Commercial pilots spend long hours in simulators during their training, while simulators have become increasingly commonplace in recent years for race car drivers to train without being at a race track.
Cuban said that “smart companies will have their employees and stakeholders with the most domain knowledge create the simulator that takes them through every possible situation they could face and helps prepare them.”
“Onboarding will have a completely different meaning,” he added.
Thomas Roulet, a professor of organizational sociology and leadership at the University of Cambridge, told Business Insider that many organizations and business schools already use virtual reality to train employees in areas such as unconscious bias.
“I don’t see this as fundamentally new, but it is probably true that it will become even more common,” Roulet said.
“Jobs that cannot be replaced by AI require coordination, combining skills, fast analysis in space and in context,” he added, giving plumbers and electricians as examples.
“AI can definitely help generate scenarios that support learning.”
It’s easy to imagine a newly qualified lawyer sitting through simulations of depositions, court hearings, and settlement negotiations so they know what to expect.
Or a trainee doctor preparing for real-life situations by speaking with AI patients, assisting in a virtual surgery, and participating in simulated emergencies.
If, as Cuban suggests, those scenarios are created by harnessing the knowledge and experience of their real-life colleagues at those law firms and hospitals, a job simulator could provide practical, realistic training.
Cuban has posted repeatedly this week that AI will change the world, but falls short in areas such as “reading the room” and having emotional intelligence. He’s said that it will work best in collaboration with humans.
“Add AI productivity to the real time capacity and judgement of humans, and you will get the greatest return on both investments,” he posted on Thursday.
