Should You Still Study Law or Medicine in the Age of AI?

A Provocative Claim From Silicon Valley

Jad Tarifi isn’t exactly a household name, but within the tech world he’s something of a legend. At just 42, he helped found Google’s first generative AI team, then left the company in 2021 to start his own venture, Integral AI. And now he’s making the kind of sweeping pronouncements that sound almost designed to make people choke on their coffee.

His warning? Don’t bother becoming a doctor or a lawyer. By the time you finish your degree, he argues, artificial intelligence will have eaten both careers alive.

A Harsh Outlook on Education

In an interview with Business Insider, Tarifi suggested that traditional higher education is increasingly a bad bet. Not just in the sense that it’s expensive (though it definitely is), but in the deeper sense that the subjects themselves might be obsolete before graduates even enter the workforce.

He singled out law and medicine as prime examples. These are professions people usually think of as stable, prestigious, even recessionproof. Yet Tarifi sees them as sitting ducks for automation. “In the current medical system, what you learn in medical school is so outdated and based on memorization,” he said. To him, slogging through nearly a decade of exams, residencies, and sixfigure debt is little more than “throwing away” the prime years of one’s life.

The PhD Problem

Tarifi didn’t stop at law or medicine. He cast doubt on the pursuit of PhDs in general. Unless you’re “obsessed with the field,” he said, don’t bother. The logic is simple, if slightly cynical: by the time you finish five to seven years of doctoral research, the technology you’re studying may have already leapfrogged your work.

He offered himself as an example. “I have a PhD in AI,” he admitted, “but I don’t know how the latest microprocessor works.” That gap, in his eyes, shows how quickly expertise becomes outdated in fastmoving fields. Even areas that seem promising, like robotics, could be “solved” by AI before your dissertation is bound and filed.

What’s Left Worth Studying?

So, if law, medicine, and even PhDs in computer science are on shaky ground, what does Tarifi think people should do? His advice was oddly narrow: either dive into niche areas like AI for biology, which he sees as still young enough to matter, orwell, don’t do anything at all.

That’s not exactly a comforting message for a 19yearold sitting in a college advising office, staring at tuition bills and wondering if their dreams are doomed. It feels almost cruel, this suggestion that the only viable future is to either gamble on a niche or step aside entirely.

A Strange Detour Into SelfHelp

When pressed on what might still be “worth working on,” Tarifi pivoted away from career paths entirely. He suggested people should turn inward: meditate, spend time with friends, explore their emotions. It’s the kind of answer that sounds enlightened on the surface, but in contextcoming from a man who helped unleash the very tools threatening millions of jobsit rings a bit hollow. Like Silicon Valley wellness wallpaper pasted over a gaping labormarket hole.

And honestly, there’s something odd about telling young people not to study medicine because AI might catch up, while also telling them to just “socialize more.” Patients aren’t going to be comforted by the fact that their wouldbe doctor chose meditation over medical school.

The Limits of His Argument

Still, Tarifi isn’t completely off base. Medical school does take nearly a decade, and the law is already seeing AI’s footprint. Some firms use machine learning to sift through contracts faster than junior associates ever could. Chatbots draft briefs, summarize case law, and even generate arguments (though with plenty of errors).

And yes, AI tools can sometimes outperform doctors at narrow tasks like spotting tumors in scans. If the pace of progress continues unchecked, it’s conceivable that some roles will shrink or vanish.

But here’s the counterpoint: AI is also famously brittle. Chatbots hallucinate facts, misinterpret context, and fail at tasks requiring nuance. The muchhyped examples of “AI lawyers” often fall apart when tested in realworld conditions. One New York lawyer famously submitted a brief full of fake citations generated by ChatGPT, only to be fined by a judge. As for medicine, AI might flag a possible tumor, but it doesn’t sit with a patient who’s terrified of the results, doesn’t weigh lifestyle factors, and doesn’t catch subtle, human details outside of the scan.

The Reality Check

So is Tarifi right? Maybe partly. A kid entering med school today won’t be a fullfledged doctor until the early 2030s, and by then, AI could be astonishingly capable. But even if machines are diagnosing diseases flawlessly by then, we’re still facing a worldwide physician shortage. Unless we somehow invent AI doctors that people actually trustand regulators allowit’s hard to imagine hospitals turning away human medical students anytime soon.

The same goes for law. AI can draft contracts at lightning speed, but trials aren’t just about paperwork; they’re about persuasion, credibility, human judgment. You can’t crossexamine a witness with a chatbot. Or at least, not yet.

The Bigger Picture: Fear or Reality?

Perhaps what Tarifi’s comments really reflect is a broader anxiety about how quickly AI is advancing, and how unprepared traditional systems like universities are to adapt. Medical curricula still rely heavily on rote memorization. Law schools still crank out graduates with mountains of debt but little practical training. AI, meanwhile, doesn’t wait for accreditation boardsit evolves in months, not decades.

So maybe Tarifi’s doomsaying is partly a critique of education itself, not just of AI’s potential.

Conclusion: Between Alarm and Opportunity

Tarifi’s comments are provocative, maybe deliberately so. Telling bright young students that their dreams are pointless is, at best, premature. At worst, it risks pushing people away from fields that desperately need them.

The truth is probably messier. AI will reshape law and medicine, no doubt, but it won’t erase them. More likely, it will carve away certain tasks while amplifying others, forcing both professions to reinvent themselves. If anything, we may need more human doctors and lawyersnot fewerprecisely because AI will create new ethical, regulatory, and social challenges that require human judgment.

In the meantime, Tarifi’s advice to meditate and socialize may be wellmeaning, but it feels like a luxury suggestion from someone cushioned by startup money. For the rest of us, the challenge isn’t whether to “do nothing at all.” It’s figuring out how to keep studying, keep working, and keep adaptingwhile the machines race ahead.

Open Your Mind !!!

Source: Futurism