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.
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?
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?