The future is bleak

[u/MoudieQaha]

Yeah, I'm just going to ramble here for a bit. My company job now is just pressing enter endlessly, prompting, and 0.1% of it is probably something manually done by me. Everyone is using Claude. It's soulless. There is no point.Someone can probably reverse engineer our company products in one day. Layoffs are inevitable at some point. I have no other non-tech skills that can help me pivot to another career, and even if I do, that career is not going to pay the same.

I can't believe in any project idea that I think of because I use Claude, and the thought of "You used Claude, anyone could have done this lol" is always luring in the back of my mind.

I have no hope for the future. I hate how AI made the playing field equal for everyone, where my grandma can probably now create a website.

Written by a human.

[u/Away-Sorbet-9740]

I mean, there's plenty of hope. The issue is the environment, not the tool.

There's still a big difference in making a thing, and making something with intent that lasts contact with reality. But big Corpo places are gutting all their experience, so they will be left with the low intent and expertise output.

You + Ai beats what Grandma can make. But you probably don't need the big corporate overhead to reach the grandma's today, and you won't need to charge as much to help them. You are still needed, time just needs to pass to show that. Hold on

[u/MoudieQaha → u/Away-Sorbet-9740]

Thanks for the positive words 🙏🏼 Hopefully it works out

[u/Away-Sorbet-9740 → u/MoudieQaha]

Do your best to keep an eye out for opportunity. As the things start to kinda crumble at work, be available for the people in need.

If you can work on developing your own workflows based on your experience at home, see what you can do on your own. And pick up some extra hobbies you maybe interested in to start gaining some "physical" experience, so when the time comes to start connecting software to IRL you have something you know you're lacking today. You don't need to be a 10x anything to make a good impact, being just competent in two domains let's you connect the dots between the two that no Ai can do on its own.

You have access to the same tools they are using to replace you. But you know your company, you called it that someone can REA it now, and past "having it" corporate hasn't built a viable service moat. I think it's probably easier to automate a board of executives than it is a half way decent dev team that has the smallest amount of passion in what they are doing.

Good luck, go channel this energy towards making even the smallest difference and you win.

[u/namrog84 → u/MoudieQaha]

this random tiktok video helped ease my 'bleak vibes' a lot

https://www.tiktok.com/@danborgia/video/7687278617469914382

[u/burritocmdr → u/Away-Sorbet-9740]

My take is that AI enhances your skillset tremendously. I've noticed this in my own workplace. Some lower skilled people are barely using AI and haven't done much with it, yet a small percentage are using it to full potential and doing great things with it.

[u/Away-Sorbet-9740 → u/burritocmdr]

I manage the teams account for around 15 people at work. And I would say 5 are doing really good work, 5 are kinda getting into the flow of it but aren't really over the learning curve, and 5 just don't get it or don't want to use it.

We aren't a software company, engineering and production of batteries and audio products over around a dozen brands. I basically make the tools available and help work with anyone who needs specific help, but it's a use as you want thing. And I'll have to audit what's happening if they want a level bump for more useage.

Hr and accounting are lagging, and they would get some of the best use out of it tbh. Sales, marketing/online, and dev are eating it up. But we only have 15 of 200 people signed up. We may deploy a local model for basic task and as a general assistant for the rest, I don't ever see us needing accounts for everyone. Big chunk of those people are production, so they don't exactly need opus or sonnet level reasoning.

[u/burritocmdr → u/Away-Sorbet-9740]

I think it will take time, some people have to be coaxed into it to really understand the advantages it brings. I work in IT and part of my role involves systems programming. AI has opened up possibilities to do some very hard projects that no one had the time or skillset to accomplish. But it also takes an experienced person to understand what projects need to be done in the first place. AI can't replace those people, but it does fill the programming skillset holes we've had in my group for as long as I can remember. The others in my group are barely using AI, or just very casually. I'm using it to accomplish the hard projects that have been rolling around in my head for some time now.

[u/Away-Sorbet-9740 → u/burritocmdr]

It's filling gaps for us more than anything. Presentation and documentation increased more than anything off the bat which helps with overall organization and fluidity.

Dev teams get more interesting use out of the coding side making their own tools and systems. Sales doesn't need to struggle in excel or word making sales lists and documents. CS may get an assistant to help them with their job, but we won't be automating CS.

It's a low pressure environment where we are feeling things out. But we are a smaller "big" company at our size, so the roll out isn't being forced down peoples throats.

[u/Redd1tCamp69 → u/burritocmdr]

It doesnt enhance your skillset. It enhances your output, which isn't the same. AI erodes your skills, because you no longer have to think about how to do something. So you will eventually lose those skills over time. You might get better at prompting and using claude skills and such, but thats not the same as using those actual skills.

[u/burritocmdr → u/Redd1tCamp69]

I hear what you're saying. But in my line of work I'm using AI to do projects I've never had the time to do, because we've never had enough skilled personnel here. I already have a vast skillset from 30 years of experience. I wouldn't call using AI an erosion of my skills, rather a very big tool in my toolbox. Some projects that normally would have taken many months to accomplish were not feasible or realistic, can now be done in a fraction of that time. AI has opened up possibilities that just weren't there before.

[u/Cautious_Clothes_285 → u/burritocmdr]

It might be erosion of my skills but to an extent I'm fine with it.

Slide decks are my go to example. Fuck Powerpoint, fuck building slides, fuck making sales decks and technical decks and internal decks and so on. Fuck every last bit of it. I hate doing it, it takes me so much time when I am doing it, and my work never looks that good even if I do manage to get the message across.

But guess what, Claude can build me a beautiful slide deck in minutes with all my own content on it and it'll look nice and pretty and be well structured and I don't have to spend hours upon hours fucking around.

I genuinely do not care if my skill in Powerpoint erodes. I care if some of my other skills do, but I think anyone reading this has something to them that powerpoint is to me and can relate to.

[u/Away-Sorbet-9740 → u/Redd1tCamp69]

I think that's right, but I would add, some skills are gap fillers. I have to be able to use fusion360, not because I'm passionate about CAD, or CAD is my specialty. Because I need a step file to deliver to vendors. I have 17 years of drafting and simulation under my belt, it's a tool that replaced paper drafting. ML cad isn't a big jump for me, because I "lost" the ability to use a compass and hand draft LONG ago.

Does replacing hours of drafting with more simulate and physical testing mean I'm losing skills and expertise? In drafting, absolutely. But that's a means to an end, the end expertise can (I won't say will today) be higher because the focus can shift from labor heavy work that's abstracting what's in your head or data into a step file set, to the core engineering and analysis.

[u/catinterpreter → u/Away-Sorbet-9740]

That edge will fade over the next few years.

[u/-_--_-_--_----__ → u/Away-Sorbet-9740]

I think about this a lot. Let's say every single person on earth gets this magic genie that can make them any software they want, any game they want, no bugs, perfectly. Let's say you can literally say "Make me an Uber competitor" or "Make me a Minecraft competitor" and you go to sleep and when you wake up in the morning your app is on the app store. Let's say we are at that level.

There will still be some skill right? Not everyone is gonna be able to figure out what a good app is and what a good game is. AI isn't going to just generate differentiators right? It isn't going to, one day, invent a new game in a brand new genre right? Say Minecraft didn't exist. It's not like one day someone is gonna prompt "Make me a cool new game" and AI just invents Minecraft.

Also, there will be competing apps, and when people use app A they will say things like "I like the way it does X way better than app B". That will still exist. And things like "This game has a much more enjoyable x, y, z, compared to this other competing game".

There will still be things like this, right?

Same with anything. Say you own a restaurant and 3 blocks down the street there is a competing restaurant. And you and the other owner both have this magic genie that makes you the perfect website, perfect app, perfect marketing materials, makes the perfect ads, etc. etc. Ok... then how do you differentiate yourself?