‘Don't bother with a PhD’: Former Google AI chief warns against chasing slow degrees

While Silicon Valley is throwing multimillion-dollar offers at AI talent, not everyone is buying into the hype. Jad Tarifi, who built Google’s first generative AI team, says aspiring minds should think twice before chasing a PhD to ride the AI wave.

In a conversation with Business Insider, Tarifi offered a sharp reality check, "AI itself is going to be gone by the time you finish a Ph.D. Even things like applying AI to robotics will be solved by then. So either get into something niche like AI for biology, which is still in its very early stages, or just don't get into anything at all."

Despite holding a PhD in AI from the University of Florida, Tarifi doesn’t glamorize the path. He admits the degree is best left to the "weird people" willing to trade "five years of your life and a lot of pain." His advice, "I don't think anyone should ever do a Ph.D. unless they are obsessed with the field."

With the AI landscape evolving rapidly, Tarifi believes real learning and growth happen outside academia. "If you are unsure, you should definitely default to 'no,' and focus on just living in the world … You will move much faster. You'll learn a lot more. You'll be more adaptive to how things are changed," he said.

His skepticism isn’t limited to AI doctorates. Tarifi warns that long, traditional degree paths — like medicine and law — are also at risk of becoming obsolete. "In the current medical system, what you learn in medical school is so outdated and based on memorization," he said, noting that people end up “throwing away” eight years chasing credentials that may no longer hold value.

So how does one thrive in the AI age? Tarifi champions emotional intelligence over technical credentials. He believes success lies in skills like prompting AI and reading context—both rooted in empathy and intuition. "The best thing to work on is more internal. Meditate. Socialize with your friends. Get to know yourself emotionally," he said.

This focus on empathy echoes a recent statement by Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind. Speaking to Wired, Hassabis stressed that roles involving human connection — like nursing — won’t be easily replaced. “There's a lot of things I think we won't want to do with a machine,” he said. “Maybe a doctor and what the doctor does and the diagnosis, one could imagine that being helped by AI... but not everything.”