Maybe the Job Market Being Trash Is the Best Thing That Could Happen to You
On AI, data, biosecurity, and where the Caribbean actually needs to show up
Now that my Master's is slowly winding down and I finally have mental capacity for reading that isn't solely academic, I've had more time to read more broadly and sit with a few ideas I want to share.
Let's start here: the job market is, to put it plainly, trash right now. I've seen the Instagram posts. "The job market is so horrible, you might as well just chase your passion."
Fair enough.
But I want to take a different spin on it.
If the market is already hard, why not aim that difficulty somewhere that actually matters? Not just for you, but for the world.
That's the real intention behind this post: to spread awareness of organisations, fellowships, and opportunities that exist, but that rarely reach the Caribbean. These spaces, think tanks and programmes are happening. They're just almost never happening in our neck of the woods.
And we need to be there. Trust me. After watching the devastation in Nepal, after Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica, after the storm the year before that, the pattern is impossible to ignore: the people, communities, and countries being hit hardest are rarely the ones in the room when the decisions that caused (or could have prevented) it are being made.
So here are three things I want on your radar.
1. AI safety isn't optional anymore
Whatever your personal take on AI, whatever it's doing right now, good or bad, one thing is settled: it's here to stay. There's no turning back at this point. The real question is how we manage it from here.
For the Caribbean, that means three things:
Putting ourselves forward in shaping good AI policy and safeguards, not just adopting whatever gets handed to us
Positioning ourselves as creators, not only consumers, of AI
Protecting our imagery, our likeness, and our data from being duplicated, deepfaked, or otherwise used without our consent
But here's the part that should worry us more than comfort us: Jamaica's National AI Task Force was formed in August 2023. It completed a UNESCO assessment in April 2026. It is only now, going into the second half of 2026, beginning to draft an actual national AI policy. Nearly three years, and there is still nothing enacted.
That's not a technicality. That's the pattern.
The region is good at forming the task force. We're good at commissioning the assessment. We're good at the announcement, the panel, the press release. What we consistently struggle with is the follow-through, the funded, named, implemented thing that actually protects somebody.
This is the story of the region being reactive instead of proactive, over and over. We form the body after the problem has already started. We assess after the risk is already active. We announce intentions and call it progress. And then we wonder why, three years later, the people most exposed are still unprotected.
Which is exactly why "more people in the room" isn't enough on its own. We don't just need Caribbean people present in AI policy, we need Caribbean people pushing it through to implementation, holding it accountable on a timeline, refusing to let a task force be the finish line instead of the starting point. Representation without follow-through is just a different kind of absence.
2. Your data is not just your data
Medical research has always leaned on the same narrow demographics, the same regions of the world. Eventually, it reaches us here in the Caribbean. But who own's the data? What's actually happening with it right now?
Data is one of the biggest currencies there is. You might think, "What does anyone really want with my data?" But its impact goes far beyond your saved passwords and your ad preferences. It's shaping what you see, what you're fed, which perspectives reach you and which don't.
That's exactly how propaganda works. It works because you don't notice it happening. Now imagine that entire mechanism sitting in your phone, powered by your own data, keeping you scrolling, keeping you fed a version of reality someone else selected.
Look at beach access, one of the more pressing issues in Jamaica right now. If the data suggests people are apathetic about it, that apathy can be used to justify inaction. Data that isn't protected can be turned into a tool against the very people it was taken from.
(If you want more on this, I wrote a full post on Jamaica's Data Protection Act. Worth a read.)
3. Biotech, biosecurity, and the next pandemic
We're not far removed from a pandemic. So: how do we prevent the next one?
Science has been moving fast, even before AI entered the picture, and I'm genuinely proud of that. We've come a long way from believing illness was some unseen curse to understanding microbes and biological processes we can actually study and treat.
Now AI is accelerating that progress even further. That's the good news. The bad news is the same acceleration is available to bad actors. AI has already been used to help design previously unknown viruses. Sixteen new ones, according to one recent case. Government oversight and biosecurity regulation have not caught up to that reality, and the Caribbean, with our comparatively limited infrastructure, is more exposed than most.
Climate change is not abstract for us
For the Caribbean, this is the most immediate one. We're living through increasingly intense hurricanes and storms in real time, not as a distant projection.
And this isn't just a feeling I have. When Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica, researchers at the UWI Climate Studies Group, Mona ran a rapid attribution study and found that climate change measurably intensified the storm. That's not a 2050 projection. That's the storm that just happened to us.
You don't need to be "technical" to belong in these rooms
Here's something I've learned: it's not only the technical seats that need filling. Sometimes what a mission needs most is people, people who can manage teams, operations, and finances well enough that the work actually gets done day to day.
No matter how big the vision, if the basics of getting things done aren't handled, none of it moves. And the Caribbean has something a lot of "fresh out the gate" thinking doesn't: genuinely innovative, peculiar, resourceful ideas that come from having to make do. We belong in these rooms.
I know the pushback: Olivia, it's great to have big ambitions for the Caribbean, but we don't have the resources, the revenue, the investment to even start.
That's fair.
And also, we've done more with far less before.
This isn't a plea. It's an open door
I'm not trying to convince or pressure anyone into anything. I just want to open up the range of what "career" can mean.
If you only ever picture lawyer, doctor, teacher, police officer, you'll never even consider the other ways your skills could contribute, to your community, to humanity, to a problem that's actually worth solving.
There are excellent remote opportunities out there. But I also see real value in staying, in building in and for Jamaica. It's going to be hard.
Your life is probably already hard. So if it's going to be hard either way, we might as well spend that difficulty on something worthwhile.
If you get what I'm saying, you get it. This post isn't for everyone, and that's fine.
Two things worth reading before you move on
A recent study found that large language models, including GPT-4, Claude, and Llama, give measurably less accurate answers to users who are non-US, non-native English speakers, or less formally educated. Users from countries like Iran got the worst results, and the gap widened the more of these traits a person had. If your data shapes how these systems treat you, that's not a small thing.
IG post highlighting new MIT study on LLM targetting vulnerable users AI has already been used to help create novel viruses (referenced earlier). Sixteen, in one documented case. Biosecurity regulation needs to move as fast as the science it's meant to govern, and the Caribbean can't afford to be an afterthought in that conversation.
Resources, if you want to go further
Probably Good helps you find work that's good for you and good for the world
80,000 Hours is a strong starting point on high-impact careers
Career decisions can feel accidental. You take the first reasonable offer, follow the path everyone else is on, and suddenly you're years into work you never actually chose. It's worth stepping back and asking: what do I actually want the time I spend working to add up to?
There's more room here than people realise: rolling out public health programmes, advocating for climate solutions, working on pandemic detection or AI governance, building the operations that let mission-driven organisations function, or simply positioning yourself to give back on your own terms. None of this is wishful. People are doing it right now. It just takes a bit of strategy to get there.
Caribbean voices worth following
A short, non-exhaustive list of people already doing this kind of work across the region:
Climate and disaster risk
Jhordanne Jones (Jamaica/diaspora) — hurricane researcher trained at UWI Mona's Climate Studies Group, now a NOAA postdoctoral fellow at Purdue; co-founded Caribbeans For Climate to bridge academia and Caribbean communities worldwide
Kalain Hosein (Trinidad and Tobago) — founder of the Trinidad and Tobago Weather Center and former Guardian Media weather anchor, now studying Climate and Society at Columbia; one of the most followable Caribbean climate explainers working today
Dainalyn Swaby (Jamaica) — hosts Global Yaadie, a podcast translating climate, culture, and sustainable development for young Caribbean audiences at home and in the diaspora
Khadija Stewart (Trinidad and Tobago) — ocean and climate specialist and founder of EcoVybz, covering oceans, climate justice, and deep-sea mining through storytelling
Michael Taylor and Tannecia Stephenson (Jamaica) — co-direct the UWI Climate Studies Group, Mona, and were among the researchers behind the rapid Hurricane Melissa attribution study above
Environment and oceans
Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie (Jamaica) — environmental scientist and CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust, leading the country's most visible pushback against deep-sea mining and weak environmental governance
AI, data, and policy
Adrian Dunkley (Jamaica) — founder of StarApple AI, a member of Jamaica's National AI Task Force, and someone who's put years into free AI training for Caribbean students
Craig Ramlal (Trinidad and Tobago) — UWI AI researcher chairing the CTU's Caribbean AI Task Force, and one of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Advisory Body members on AI
Health security and biosecurity
Lisa Indar (Trinidad and Tobago) — Executive Director of CARPHA, leading the region's pandemic preparedness, AMR, and laboratory-network work
Carlon Kirton (Trinidad and Tobago) — heads CARPHA's communications, running vaccine-confidence and AMR public health campaigns across the region
Carika Weldon (Caribbean diaspora) — founder of CariGenetics, the Caribbean's first genomics company, working to close the gap in Black and Caribbean representation in genetic research
Worth knowing about
Jamaica's National AI Task Force has already published formal policy recommendations
CARPHA, alongside UWI St Augustine and the Trinidad Public Health Laboratory, forms a documented regional network for pathogen genomics and health security
The Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (based in Belize) plays a central institutional role in regional climate policy
If any of this resonates, start there. Follow one or two of these people. Read one paper. That's genuinely enough to begin.
Be Liv-Tastic 😊
Wow, such a easy but thought provoking read!