My 11-Year-Old Asked If Anything Is Going to Be Left

I've been excited about AI and what it's doing for my career. Then my son asked me a question I didn't fully have an answer to.

Yesterday my son asked me if life would be harder for him when he's my age. He's 11. I asked him what he meant, and he pointed at the noise monopolizing every headline right now. The economic uncertainty, the pace of change, the feeling that things are shifting faster than anyone can get comfortable with. Then he looked at me and asked, "Is anything going to be left?"

I didn't have a clean answer. I gave him an honest one instead, and I've been turning it over ever since.

Here's the thing: I'm genuinely excited about where technology is going. I spent years in energy services before moving into bulk transport and trailer leasing across Western Canada and the US, and the day I started applying AI tools seriously to my work was one of the more energizing stretches of my career. Prospect research that used to eat hours. Follow-up sequences I'd been putting off. Connections I was slow to nurture. The tools didn't replace that work. They cleared the friction and gave me more room to do the parts that actually require a person. I'm not a reluctant convert. I've leaned in and I haven't regretted it.

But sitting across from my son, and thinking about my daughter too, I feel the weight of how much I genuinely don't know about the world they're walking into.

The honest state of the projections

The forecasts on AI and employment cover an enormous range, and that range itself is telling. The World Economic Forum's 2025 Jobs Report projected AI would displace roughly 85 million roles globally while generating around 97 million new ones. Goldman Sachs research from 2023 put the number of jobs affected by automation at close to 300 million worldwide. MIT economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee have written for years about how technology creates more work than it destroys over long time horizons, but that the disruption in the middle is real, uneven, and concentrated in ways that aren't always visible from the outside.

Key projections:

85M  roles projected to be displaced by AI by 2025 (WEF)

97M  new roles expected to emerge in the same window (WEF)

300M  jobs potentially affected by automation globally (Goldman Sachs, 2023)

What none of those numbers tell you is which careers, in which industries, in which cities, will feel it first and hardest. Anyone claiming to have that mapped out in detail is guessing confidently. The timeline is moving. The targets are shifting. That's not pessimism, it's just where we actually are.

“Is anything going to be left?” I’ve thought about that question more than he probably realizes. It deserves a better answer than reassurance.

What I actually told him

I didn't tell him everything would be fine. I don't know that, and he's wiley enough to know when I'm sugar-coating. What I told him is that every generation has looked at the world shifting around them and felt exactly what he's feeling. Then I told him about the demise of the horse and buggy whip. The people who made them weren't replaced by nothing. The economy moved, new work emerged, and the ones who adapted were the ones who stayed curious and kept connecting with people who were figuring it out alongside them.

I believe two things will hold up regardless of where AI lands.

The first is the ability to keep learning. Not a specific credential, though education still matters. The disposition to pick up new skills without waiting for permission, to be comfortable starting over when something new shows up, to stay curious when the path changes. That's the most durable professional asset I've seen across every industry I've worked in. The people who struggled through previous waves of disruption weren't the least educated. They were the ones who stopped adding to their toolkit once they felt settled.

The second is real relationships. The deals I've done, the problems I've navigated, the opportunities that came without warning, almost all of them trace back to a person who knew me, trusted me, and made a call. AI can write a cold email. It cannot build the decade of credibility behind it. The human layer of business, built on actual history and actual trust, gets more valuable as the rest gets automated, not less.

Excitement and worry aren't a contradiction

There's pressure to pick a lane on AI. Either you're optimistic and bullish, or you're worried and skeptical. I'm both, and I don't think that's inconsistent. At work, I use the tools every day and push the people around me to do the same. At home, watching my kids start to ask questions I can't fully answer, I feel the size of the uncertainty they're inheriting.

But uncertainty isn't the same as danger. My son's question sat with me, and it also told me something encouraging: he's paying attention. He's thinking about the future in real terms. That's a kid learning to take the long view early, and that instinct is exactly what will serve him.

I don't have a complete answer to what's going to be left. But I'm confident that curious people who keep learning and invest seriously in the people around them will find their footing in whatever comes next.

Cory Thibert is based in Calgary, AB and works in bulk liquid and pneumatic trailer leasing across Western Canada and the US Gulf Coast. He writes about leadership, logistics, and whatever he's actually thinking about. corythibert.com