A lot of people seem to be realizing that knowledge work is mostly pointless. AI might give us the pleasure of finding out what happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers.
I feel exactly like that. I started in tech some 10+ years ago simply because I liked computers and what you could do with them and since then I changed jobs, got promoted several times but i never truly lost the passion. That is, until a couple of years ago, after I was once again promoted in a very senior technical position. Something happened after that, the amount of bullshit I had to endure was just immense. Day in and day out, it was more and more about the perception of doing work, the politics, the positioning against strategic direction, the revenue. BUT, I was still happy every now and then when I managed to do what I loved and what I was good at. And then LLMs happened and it’s been downhill ever since. No joy, no purpose, nothing that I can cling to for my own sanity. Almost every day I dream about being a bartender or a mailman or simply not doing anything. Of course, I probably will never actually do it, the amount of money I earn now simply doesn’t exist in other jobs and I’m not sure one can live off of “gratitude of a job that’s actually useful” and I’m getting older and that’s that. No happy ending here.
This is more or less how I feel as well. I yearn for something that I feel proud of again, yet feel held hostage by a salary. To add on to this…
I spent years studying and learning to be good at what I do. It feels like with the advent of agents, I’m suddenly less useful than I was before. Colleagues who were juniors (IC1 or IC2) are being up-leveled to staff simply because they started regurgitating agent output - essentially being meat proxies. They barely understand what they are saying and don’t hold up to scrutiny when I ask them questions in voice calls. They can’t answer without prompting an AI. It’s frustrating to no end. I thought I was having a mid-life crisis, but it’s the industry that changed.
Now I am trying to pull back and go offline when I’m not on the clock. If there is no difference between knowledge that is hard earned through study, exams, or degrees, and all it takes is to be a meat proxy, what is my motivation to improve my technical skills for a profession?
I feel exactly like that. I started in tech some 10+ years ago simply because I liked computers and what you could do with them and since then I changed jobs, got promoted several times but i never truly lost the passion. That is, until a couple of years ago, after I was once again promoted in a very senior technical position. Something happened after that, the amount of bullshit I had to endure was just immense. Day in and day out, it was more and more about the perception of doing work, the politics, the positioning against strategic direction, the revenue. BUT, I was still happy every now and then when I managed to do what I loved and what I was good at. And then LLMs happened and it’s been downhill ever since. No joy, no purpose, nothing that I can cling to for my own sanity. Almost every day I dream about being a bartender or a mailman or simply not doing anything. Of course, I probably will never actually do it, the amount of money I earn now simply doesn’t exist in other jobs and I’m not sure one can live off of “gratitude of a job that’s actually useful” and I’m getting older and that’s that. No happy ending here.
This is more or less how I feel as well. I yearn for something that I feel proud of again, yet feel held hostage by a salary. To add on to this…
I spent years studying and learning to be good at what I do. It feels like with the advent of agents, I’m suddenly less useful than I was before. Colleagues who were juniors (IC1 or IC2) are being up-leveled to staff simply because they started regurgitating agent output - essentially being meat proxies. They barely understand what they are saying and don’t hold up to scrutiny when I ask them questions in voice calls. They can’t answer without prompting an AI. It’s frustrating to no end. I thought I was having a mid-life crisis, but it’s the industry that changed.
Now I am trying to pull back and go offline when I’m not on the clock. If there is no difference between knowledge that is hard earned through study, exams, or degrees, and all it takes is to be a meat proxy, what is my motivation to improve my technical skills for a profession?