Despite headlines warning of job displacement due to artificial intelligence, quantitative researcher Toby Carrodus offers a more measured perspective on technology’s impact. Drawing from historical patterns and his professional experience, Carrodus suggests that humans maintain distinct advantages that will remain relevant despite technological advancement.
The current anxiety surrounding AI follows a familiar historical pattern. “Resistance to new technology is nothing new,” notes Toby Carrodus, who points to the introduction of the automobile as a parallel example. When John Henry Ford presented the first affordable family car, many feared mass unemployment for those working with horses, from stable hands to farriers. Instead, an entirely new economic ecosystem emerged around automobiles, creating previously unimagined job categories.
This phenomenon has been observed throughout technological history. Queen Elizabeth I rejected a patent for a knitting machine in the 16th century, fearing its impact on weavers. This “Fear of Obsolescence” represents a recurring apprehension about technological change that often proves exaggerated.
Human Relationship Skills Remain Paramount
According to Carrodus, interpersonal skills represent a primary domain where humans maintain a significant edge over artificial intelligence. “Despite the rise of computers, we still share this planet with 8 billion human beings. The more people you get along with and have good relationships with, the more opportunities and better odds of success you have in life,” he explains.
This perspective aligns with the anthropological understanding of human social structures. Historically, humans evolved in tribes because social cooperation ensured the greatest probability of survival. Today, while immediate social circles may be smaller, individuals typically belong to multiple social groups simultaneously, expanding access to diverse skills and knowledge.
Historians Will and Ariel Durant captured this dynamic in their work “The Lessons of History” nearly six decades ago, observing that “the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things” – including computers and technology. The ability to cooperate, influence, and negotiate remains fundamentally human.
Toby Carrodus has observed this principle throughout his career in quantitative analysis, where machine learning techniques play a significant role. “It is often those quantitative analysts who master relationships as well as their subject matter that get ahead,” Carrodus notes. This suggests that even in highly technical fields, human relationship skills create professional advantages that AI cannot replicate.
The Creativity Distinction
Another area where Carrodus identifies human advantage is creativity. He emphasizes that artificial intelligence depends on human-generated content for training data, limiting its ability to produce truly novel concepts.
This limitation has been documented in recent research published in Nature. Scientists compared the output of large language models (LLMs) trained on original human-generated content against models trained on successive iterations of AI-generated content. The results showed that AI trained on AI-produced content eventually generated incomprehensible text with no connection to reality, becoming “poisoned with its own projection of reality.”
This finding indicates fundamental constraints on AI creativity. While algorithms can recombine existing information in interesting ways, they struggle to develop genuinely new concepts without human guidance.
Toby Carrodus has witnessed these limitations firsthand in algorithmic trading models. “AI models can be successful in identifying combinations of parameters that perfectly explain the past but have minimal predictability for the future due to certain statistical properties in markets,” he explains.
The challenge stems from what statisticians call “stationarity” – the stability of statistical relationships over time. In complex domains like financial markets, parameters that worked historically may not apply to future conditions. Without domain knowledge to understand causal relationships, purely data-driven approaches often fail when conditions change.
This limitation applies particularly to social phenomena, where controlled experiments across parallel scenarios aren’t possible. In contrast, AI demonstrates greater utility in physical sciences, where statistical relationships remain more consistent.
Carrodus points to a recent collaboration between Microsoft and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as an example of a productive AI application. The partnership used AI to identify 18 promising materials from 32 million theoretical possibilities that could reduce lithium usage in batteries by 70%. While human scientists must still conduct the actual research, AI significantly narrowed their investigative scope.
While acknowledging AI’s ability to create artistic outputs like fantasy landscapes, Carrodus maintains that human creativity retains advantages in domains requiring accuracy and factual correctness. In these areas, AI continues to depend on human-generated training data and expert validation.
Leveraging AI Rather Than Resisting It
Rather than fearing technological advancement, Toby Carrodus advocates for the integration of AI into professional practices. “Technology is only going to be more a part of our day-to-day lives as time goes on. Rather than withstand it and claim to be a victim of its rise, it is in our interest to leverage it in our daily tasks where possible,” he recommends.
Current AI systems, particularly large language models, still require significant human input for training and output interpretation. Carrodus suggests that focusing on distinctly human capabilities like creativity and interpersonal skills positions professionals to thrive alongside AI rather than compete with it.
New professional roles are already emerging around AI technologies. “Prompt engineers,” for example, specialize in formulating effective queries for large language models like ChatGPT. Such developments suggest that adaptation rather than resistance represents the most promising approach to technological change.
Professional Background
Toby Carrodus brings substantial experience to his analysis of AI and technology. As a quantitative researcher focused on algorithmic trading, he has worked internationally in Frankfurt, London, Sydney, and Los Angeles for organizations including PIMCO and Winton Capital.
Beyond his professional work, Carrodus directs a scholarship program supporting students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. This initiative reflects his commitment to expanding educational opportunities based on his own professional journey.
The perspective Toby Carrodus offers on artificial intelligence balances technological appreciation with recognition of enduring human advantages. Rather than seeing AI as a replacement for human capabilities, he positions it as a tool that can enhance productivity when appropriately integrated into professional practice.
His analysis suggests that technological transitions, while disruptive, historically create new opportunities rather than simply eliminating existing ones. By developing distinctly human capabilities while learning to leverage new technologies, professionals can navigate current transitions just as previous generations adapted to fundamental changes like industrial mechanization and computerization.
This balanced view offers a counterpoint to both uncritical techno-optimism and exaggerated fears of technological displacement. For Toby Carrodus, the most productive approach involves neither resistance nor passive acceptance, but strategic adaptation that recognizes both the capabilities and limitations of artificial intelligence in professional contexts.
