I've been looking for someone with this perspective. Do you think it is just AI and ML? Do you feel the same way about data scientists, data analyst (not actuary,statisticians,mathematicians, etc)?
What other domains do you recommend instead?
What other domains do you recommend instead?
As for your other question: no, it isn't just AI. Right now, the "javascript engineer", "mobile developer" and "data scientist" are all magical creatures of the Unicorn Land. I can't predict what comes next, but I can confidently predict that none of these things will be as hot in a decade, because they're all just the latest variations on broader themes.
That said, there are often actual disciplines beneath these trends. For example, "data science" is practically the definition of a magpie fad: science has always depended upon data, so putting "data" in front of the term is an indication of (fairly thoughtless) trend-chasing. But actuaries, analysts, scientists and statisticians have been around for decades, and will continue to exist long after the last 20-something "senior data scientist" has closed his Jupyter notebook for good. Specialize in those things, instead, and call yourself whatever goofy thing you need to say on a resume to get hired.
Any reasonably intelligent kid can pick up a data analysis tool in months, but it still takes decades for that kid to become an expert statistician. Prefer the latter.
An analyst with a balanced combination of programming and stats skills and business domain knowledge will always, always be able to find work, regardless of whatever the latest fad is.
It's the difference between being a middle manager at a tech company and being, say, Rob Pike or Jeff Dean. (Maybe that bar is set a bit too high, but hopefully you get the idea.)