Do you remember how not so long ago people wondered what humans would do for work when AI took over? What’s laughable isn’t that AI would take over, but that it would alter what it means to be human.
I think by any reasonable metric it is fair to say that AI has taken over. Now, whether you believe it to be hype that will fade faster than NFTs, or whether you believe it is a game-changer here to stay, there is one thing for sure: It’s here right now, and everyone has an opinion.
Here is mine:
Saying that AI will create a world where humans do less is to ignore a millennia of how humans have responded to new technology, and what access to that technology has produced. Not just in terms of products, but human productivity.
Having lived through pagers, mobile phones, smart phones, high-speed wireless data, to Internet on planes, to connectivity virtually anywhere with Starlink — just consider for a moment how those impacted the relationship between humans and work. Do we work less? Do we spend less time in the office? When your office can be anywhere, humans who create, produce, imagine, and build work more not less.
Humans may work more efficiently and with more mobility, but the distinctly human act of invention and innovation doesn’t shrink, or even just persists: it catapults to new heights, and yields another next thing that will repeat this upward cycle.
Don’t misunderstand, not all technology, and not all of its benefits are good (or even healthy) for us. The commodification, democratization, and commercialization of capabilities from the ability to self-publish books, to the ability to vibe-code software doesn’t mean that quality increases. It just means that it takes more effort to find the signal from within the noise. Humans are capable of producing both trash and treasure, now we can just do it faster and in greater quantity.
Technology changes, but being human doesn’t. That has been something I have written about and adopted for 25+ years. In this modern era, there will be humans who ignore technology, use it inefficiently and know it, use it inefficiently but don’t realize it, and who learn to use it at the highest levels of their profession. And we will all fall somewhere onto that spectrum in various contexts (pun inadvertently intended). Those who dream, will. Those who look for shortcuts, will. Those who build and accomplish, will.
There will be some who stay stuck in what I call fancy prompting and ridicule the “AI Slop”. In reality, there is no AI slop, it’s human slop run through artificial intelligence. Some human axioms never change: “Garbage in, garbage out”, and “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”, and “A fool and his [AI tokens] will soon part.”
One advantage of human age and authentic intelligence is recognizing that we’ve been here before. AI isn’t (or doesn’t have to be) scary in and of itself. AI isn’t replacing humans. AI is simply amplifying what humans put into it. There will be those that use it for evil, and for self-serving ends only. There will be those that use AI for good, and to serve others. The only question that remains is, what type of human are you, and what will you build?
This Philosophy Isn’t Just Words
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