AI Transformation: From Fear to Action

For those that find comfort in invariants, there is still this: Wisdom and judgement will always be in short supply in a way that is wildly asymmetric from the supply of knowledge and energy.

I’ve seen a lot of panic posts out there. I also follow the industry news extremely closely, try to read as many of the research papers as I have time for, and have also seen the step-function change in the capability of the latest models. I’ve seen the videos that explain how it has transformed the workflows of certain creators and have seen claims of mass elimination of jobs. I would hope for anyone reading this, that you can have some peace in your heart and a moment of sober, and calm.

Many of those creators are focused mostly on informing, not necessarily transferring skills, or empowering. Many who constantly seek out such information might find that the root of this constant consumption is fear. We have the fear of missing out, being left behind, or the fear of uncertainty. Sometimes in that state of fear it’s difficult to take action, and easy to lose hope. Those creators directly benefit then from cultivating that same fear. I would encourage you today to take that fear energy and convert it to the activation energy required to take a first step with any of the technologies you’re seeing. You might feel like you are collecting knowledge, but knowledge is useless until it is put to use.

Also, consider that every job, every business is not going to evaporate overnight. Businesses exist to meet needs, jobs exist when humans are necessary to help meet those needs. Whereas AI can be brought in to perform many of the job functions, many businesses will still require human help to get to the point where they can even hope to tap into those capabilities.

I believe we will get to the point where many find themselves in one of these categories:

• Building frontier models and systems that are driving the work
• Assisting new industries who have not yet tapped into AI
• Directing those models to perform job functions aligned with the intent of the business to meet those customers’ needs at businesses that are already AI-enabled
• Doing work that AI is inherently incapable of due to: the need for absolute determinism, legal, ethical, moral concerns, or work that is valued because it is done by humans (e.g., hand-decorating watch movements)

In the world of software, I believe you will find yourself doing more to deeply understand your customers’ actual needs, the job they’re actually trying to get done, making design decisions aligned to exactly that need while also performing a role like a manager of a team (of AI agents), or of an entire org/company, but without many of the other soft-skills required if that team were human.

I care about all of you. This industry has always been a disruptive place, but as a result, it is also a place where innovation is readily available to anyone willing to try to push through whatever is currently limiting them. Please do not fear, and instead take action: try something new, and take willing steps towards the place you would like to be in a new era of software engineering.