'Godfather of AI' reveals the one job that will survive as artificial intelligence takes over workplaces

A computer scientist who helped pioneer artificial intelligence has revealed the one job that he would recommend people take up.

Former Google employee Geoffrey Hinton is on a mission to raise awareness of the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) - despite helping shape it into the beast we see today.

Dubbed the 'Godfather of AI', the 77-year-old left his post at the search engine back in 2023 in a bid to alert people of AI, which he believes is threat to mankind.

"We should recognize that this stuff is an existential threat and we have to face the possibility that unless we do something soon we're near the end," he explained to Steven Bartlett on his The Diary of a CEO podcast.

So if the cognitive psychologist expresses fears that AI could take over the world, we should really start preparing ourselves... and one way is to be selective about which jobs we take up, apparently.

Geoffrey Hinton has warned that humanity is at risk due to the development of AI (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Okay, exploring career paths isn't exactly preparing for an I, Robot level AI-powered world domination, but it'll help in the years before that.

When asked what his advice would be for people and their career prospects, Hinton replied: "In the meantime, I'd say it's going to be a long time before it's as good at physical manipulation as us and so a good bet would be to be a plumber."

Bartlett then posed the question over what industries are most at risk of being wholly taken over by AI, noting that lawyers and accountants could soon be replaced.

He responded: "Yeah so that's why I mentioned plumbers, I think plumbers are less at risk. Someone like a legal assistant, a paralegal - they're not going to be needed for very long."

Hinton is not the only person to fear for the future of his 'kids and nephews', with Elon Musk also having been posed the question about AI's development and what careers he would recommend his children pursue.

AI is worryingly developing at a remarkably fast rate (Getty stock)

"Well, that is a tough question to answer," the Tesla CEO told CNBC after a long 13-second pause.

"I would just say to sort of follow their heart in terms of what they find interesting to do, or fulfilling to do.

"I mean, if I think about it too hard, frankly it can be dispiriting and demotivating because I mean I've put a lot of blood sweat and tears into building the companies and then I'm like, 'wait should I be doing this?'"

Musk continued: "Ultimately the AI can do all these things.

"To some extent I have to deliberate suspension of disbelief in order to to remain motivated, so I guess I would say just work on things that you find interesting, fulfilling and contribute some good to the rest of society."