Will AI take my job?
This is a question that has been hanging over many of us this year.
Will AI replace me? Will I no longer be needed? What will I do?
Many of us have been thinking about these questions. They make us anxious about the future because now the future looks different.
For some of us, it’s easier not to think about it. We quickly change the topic or fill our heads with distractions. Others might shout and complain and point fingers, hoping that it helps.
Crying, screaming, hiding, shrieking, and cursing are all options available to us. But they don’t really change anything about the situation. In fact, they usually make it worse.
AI, like any other technology like concrete or wireless networks, exists.
Popular self-help authors encourage us to do what’s in our control to make the situation better. “If you’re scared about it, lean into it.”1 Use your agency and “slurp up all those problems and knowledge, and leave nothing for anyone else to do”2 and “push through (your) own excuses… even when (you) didn’t feel like it.”3 Even if there are layoffs or other acts of fate, you will be in a better position.
This is a helpful way to look at problems, but the reality is, of course our jobs could no longer exist.
Here are some more hard “could be truths”:
- You didn’t do a good enough job (for this company at this time). True.
- What you were getting paid for can now be done by someone with less training, or for less money.
- Someone can do what you do but better, faster. TRUE.
It’s hard to look at these directly.
But of course it could be true.
I think it’s hard to look because there is such a slippery slope from “I’m not actually needed” to “I’m not good.” It’s scattered with guilt and shame and beliefs and all sorts of things. They feel connected.
But I didn’t say, “You are a loser,” “You are a failure,” “You should have done something,” “You won’t be happy again” or “It’s all downhill from here.” No judgements.
If you look closely, you’ll see that there is space between. Of course there’s space. It’s possible to separate these things.
Admitting that ‘I’m no longer needed here’ doesn’t take away your agency or say anything “bad” about you.
It’s difficult and painful but we must be able to recognize that it could be, and might be, one day, true.
Buddha Bike 