140: What’s the Future of Data Analysts with AI?

Will AI replace me as a data analyst. That is a question I've been getting a lot of recently. And in today's episode, I wanted to dig into. If I actually think that's going to be the case. Once again, guys, welcome back to the data career podcast, the number one podcast for your landing, your first data job. I'm your host, Avery Smith. And I run a company called data career jumpstart where I help people land their first data job. So let's talk about this whole AI, maybe taking the place of data analysts. Is it going to happen? Has it already happened? Let's get into some thoughts. All right. So AI is not coming. It is here. You guys with revolutionary new products like ChatgPT GPT4 MidJourney It's very clear that AI is all over the place, but what does that mean to you as someone who is in the data world or trying to land their first data job, are you going to be replaced? For a career you're trying so hard to work into and you can't even break into yet. Is it going to be obsolete? I actually got a message on LinkedIn this week that asked something very similar. They said that they've been hearing more and more about AI and ChatGPT 4 I came across this newsletter the other day that said that data analyst might be replaced. And I begin to wonder about future job security for junior data analysts like me. Simply because this is moving so quickly. I just wonder what your thoughts were on this. So I thought I'd make this podcast episode to kind of talk through what I think about ChatGPT Uh, LLMs. AI, everything in general. Is it coming for you? My answer is no. My answer is no. And the reason is, is AI is just a tool. You know, we really think of AI is really scary. Like these robots that could potentially take over the world. And, you know, maybe it will be that eventually, but right now all AI is, is a hammer. It still needs the human to actually do something. Now there are really cool things like auto GBT. If you've never heard of that before. Pause the podcast, you can look it up. I'm not the most well versed on it. So I'm not going to try to explain it in depth in this episode, but basically it's like where you have multiple AI agents. So imagine chat GPT talking to another chat CPT, which is talking to another chat GPT. And it can basically, instead of having a human talk to GBT it's chatty PT, talking to Chatsworth. GPT, and it becomes a little bit more autonomous. I think there's another one called auto GPT, um, as well. And these are basically talking back and forth to one another, a little bit more autonomously. So it is like maybe becoming more of. A self propelling tool. But for the most part, AI is just a tool. It's just like a hammer. It's like a saw you still need a human to operate it. So will our tasks change as data analysts and data practitioners? Yes, probably as they always have. I mean, imagine the data analysts before computers were invented now, I don't know if that was, if they were really a thing back then, probably not, but imagine what they would be doing would be a lot different than what we'd be doing today. You know, for example, they'd be doing a lot of hand calculations. Maybe they'd be using that. Like, what's that weird invention, like the Abacus, right. To keep track of all these different things. And now we have Excel. Now we have SQL Those are tools that did not exist. Did you know, these people who these mathematicians did, they lose their job when Excel came out? No. Did their job nature change? Yes, probably. They probably started to having to use the tool. So in my opinion, this is just a hammer and everyone should start using the hammer. There's no reason whether you're trying to land your first data job or whether you're an experienced data professional that you should not be using some form of AI. You need to be otherwise, they're going to get left with the times. This is a new tool. It's going to be revolutionary and you should feel enabled. In fact, you should feel emboldened by this because all of a sudden, the barrier to break into data analytics has even dropped a little bit further. Because a lot of the technical requirements can be fulfilled with CQL or sorry. Can be fulfilled with chat, GPT and AI. And what I mean by that is. It's basically all, all chatty bitchy and AI really is, is a more effective Google, right? Like in the past, if you didn't know how to do something in CQL, you could Google it. And within a few clicks, you could probably find your answer. Really I'll chat. GPT is, is a more effective Google. And I'm not even going to say more effective. I'm going to say faster, but it's not necessarily guaranteed to be right. A hundred percent of the time. So you do have to be a little bit concerned and worried about that. But really we've been doing this for years. We've been posting stuff and questions on stack overflow and getting help. We've been Googling stuff, finding different EHRs and finding the answer inside of Google. So really what I see chat GBT is coming into play is it's just going to make us more effective. It's a tool that's going to make us more effective. And for you, as someone who wants to break into the data world, you should feel really excited because now it's going to be a little bit easier to break into the field. You don't have to be memorizing all SQL. You don't have to, you know, memorize all this different statistics stuff you could ask Chachi. GPT and pretty reliably get an answer. Right, but that is a little bit scary. Cause every thinking, well, that makes me obsolete. But once again, a tool has to be wielded by a human. And humans are really good at knowing when we should do tasks. W how we should do this task and what those tasks should be. Now we can use AI. To kind of expedite that whole journey, the whole process. But it still requires a good human brain to link the business to the AI. It will not be the case in the future. I think so. We'll, we'll chat GBT and AI get better and need humans less probably. But until that happens, let's not fret. What's going to happen at midnight when it's only 9:00 AM. Right. And we can get good at using AI. We can get good at using chatty PT today. And then we're going to have job security. All right, we're going to have job security. So AI will not take your job, but a human that uses AI might. And so to be future-proof all you need to be is a human that knows how to use AI really well. And what does that mean for you? Like what can you do today to get good at that? I think you just go onto chat GBT and start playing around. Start trying to ask different questions, you know, try to ask different SQL questions or different Python questions, or maybe even some Excel questions. And just start messing around. All right. You can kind of get a feel for what it can do and what it can't do, what some limitations are, but don't be worried about it. If you have never opened it up before, if you've never tried doing data analytics on it. I don't don't fret. There's some tasks that Chatsy beauty is fantastic for. And there's other tasks that Chatswood beauty is actually not very good at, for example, if you S chat GPT to add, like, let's just say 3 million, 246,392 plus 7 million, 564,123 or something like that. Jeff. It's a simple math problem, right? Computers are really good at that. Judgey beauty will most likely get that problem wrong. And the reason is. It doesn't know how to do math. It just knows how to read what math has been done. And so it's usually when, if you, if you were to put that in chat to PT right now, they'll probably get the first numbers. Right. And the last numbers. Right. But like the hundred thousands will probably be all jumbled up because chatty BT has used written math to understand when these numbers are added to these numbers. You know, then we should probably start with these numbers and we should probably end with these numbers, but it's actually not that good at doing the middle section. So for instance, it's obviously not going to take the job in any sort of large number arithmetic. Now, computers are better at humans than adding. If we can tell the computer what we need, but that brings me to my next point. Is that the bridge between the tech and the domain or the tech in the business? Is still going to be largely covered by humans. Humans are what. Humans are more capable to see what's going on in the real world and relate it to math related to statistics related to data and make those connections and also make those choices. Right, because at the end of the day, humans, most of society is still a human decision made society. We're making business decisions. You know, even when I was at Exxon mobile, when we had AI tools, they weren't really AI. They were very data, sciency machine learning tools. It would suggest stuff, but it's still down to the human to make those decisions overall. Because once again, it's a tool it's not going to replace us and less. We don't use it at all. So I encourage all of you guys to go play with GPT, go test for yourself. Go try it out. Don't be afraid of it. It's going to be okay. Your job's not going anywhere and life's going to continue on. That being said, if you want help in your data journey landing, that first data job hit me up. I run a program called data analytics accelerator. It's a 10 week bootcamp that will help you land your first data job. Uh, by helping you build nine portfolio projects, learning the most important skills and teaching you how to network effectively with recruiters, hiring managers and peers. So that you can land that data job fast. If you're interested in that you can click on the link down below once again. Thank you guys for listening to the show. See you soon.