The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has fueled rumors of a new industrial revolution that could make millions of workers obsolete. However, the job he creates can earn up to €300,000 a year and doesn’t even require technical expertise.

AI “rapid” engineering is a new feature in the technology market, driven by the emergence of AI-powered chatbots such as GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest version of ChatGPT.

The work involves harnessing the full potential of AI by actively communicating with the algorithm and gradually teaching it to respond and follow specific instructions.

There is a huge demand for these skills. San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic currently has a vacancy for a “Quick Engineer and Librarian” with salaries ranging from $175k to $335k (€160k to €308k) per year.

“Fast engineering is like teaching a robot to talk to you, just as we use words to communicate with each other,” Michael Delcourt, a speed AI engineer and front-end developer, told Euronews.next.

“We need to give the robot the right words (“prompts”) to understand what we want it to do. To do that, we need to think carefully about the words we use.”

What are the “quick” engineering skills for AI?

According to Delcore, “on the fly” engineering is a technical way to communicate with AI algorithms, using a combination of technical skills. However, there is no programming language required because “spot” engineers simply need a sufficient level of language skills, grammar, data analysis, and critical thinking.

Andrej Karpathy, former head of artificial intelligence at Tesla, went so far as to say in a January tweet that “English is the most popular new programming language.”

In an interview with Euronews Next, Mairie Bruce, a UK-based agility engineer and AI researcher at AutogenAI, explained that successful agility engineering depends on context and user intent. He added that it should be direct, relevant and unambiguous.

“You’re just trying to make it as easy as possible,” Bruce said, “and it really shouldn’t be open to interpretation. You have to use words with intention.”

According to the researcher, this geometry is more of an art form than anything else. While there are roles that can point someone in the right direction, there is no set formula.

However, with the demand for ‘on the spot’ engineers increasing, this is a role many people may need to improve their performance.

How to become an AI “orientated” engineer

Although it is a relatively new job, rapid engineering is gaining popularity and many companies are looking for professionals in this field.

According to Bruce, language abilities, technology literacy, and an interest in artificial intelligence are the main requirements for becoming an engineer “quick”, regardless of education or professional experience.

“I studied politics at university and have no experience with technology,” he says. “If you’re interested in this field, this is basically what you need. Just a capable person with an interest and knowledge of the language, because he’s not doing programming, he’s just writing prose. So there’s no need to have any of those skills.”

Bruce also notes that previous work experience was not a requirement to become a speed engineer: “I think the criteria were fair, are they smart and capable? Do they have that deep understanding of speed engineering and can apply it to it?”

“Play with words. What words might work? What sentence structure might work? Because, like I said, there’s no set formula for it. So one form of punctuation might spark a great idea and another might not,” he says.

While many people fear that AI could take over their jobs, this engineering shows that AI will eventually create new jobs.

Bruce says AI can restructure the way people work and increase their productivity.

“I think ‘fast’ engineering shows, in a way, that new technology is not going to end people’s careers. It is going to create new jobs that we didn’t see possible before,” he concludes.