Are you architecting your own replacement? Is AI going to ‘happen to you’?

Just read Tom Webster‘s newsletter where he mentions “AI is going to ‘happen to you,’ and wonderful if you use it to make things happen”

Wonderful phrase, that. I like it a lot.

My response is this. If you are using AI to ‘make things happen’ then you have proved that AI can and will happen to you. Especially if you are responding to AI rather than the instigator of it.

It makes me think of the theories around morphic resonance. Part of that whole thing is once someone invents or achieves something, those who follow find it easier.

A neat example is Sir Roger Bannister running a mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds (he of chariots of fire fame) then lots more people breaking the 4min mile after.

There was a story (debunked sadly) that monkeys on one island started washing their potatoes or something, and then an other independent island of monkeys picked up the same idea without any connection between them.

Did you know average IQs seem to increase every year? I remember this because my father in law’s surname is Flynn and the discovery is called the Flynn effect.

Turns out similar things happen, all the time, and unlike veggie cleaning monkeys, happen for real. Technology allows us to remove the “but how do I implement this” barrier. “See that? I want that. Do that”. Beep-beep-whirrr ….

Where am I going with all of that nonsense? Once an idea is out there, the pattern is started, the thing is figured out. The hard part is done. Iterating on that pattern is just a continuous process of test-optimise-test.

Once you have a system where AI is pulling in data, processing the data, pinging you, polishing, correcting, giving analysis, what value does the human bring? I would suggest most corporations would gladly remove the human from that loop, no matter how charming, especially if the added value is offset by friction and costs.

It gets worse because the “better at AI” you are, the more of a memory/checklist/flowchart/decision tree you probably created, partially because you need QA and deterministic output. Congratulations, you really footgunned that one. Happy retirement!

My recommendation (which you will ignore, no question) is to not commodify yourself as being “the one who pushes the button”.