Will AI replace my job?

Is the judgment day coming soon?

We are seeing a lot of doomsday predictions about Artificial Intelligence and its impact on the workforce. Titles claiming software developers, book writers, or lawyers will be replaced soon are commonplace today.

Some believe AI will wipe out a majority of the white-collar workforce in the coming months. Startup mentors advise companies to include an AI component in their products to increase their odds of raising money. And almost all startups are adding some kind of AI integration to ride the AI wave, even if it worsens their product.

In less than a year, we switched from web3/crypto/blockchain hype to AI hype. It not only questions the value and conviction of investors about the crypto market but their real insights into this new AI hype.

2021 vs. 2023 in startup land

The reality is that while everybody thinks that robots will write your emails and summarize your meetings, my iPhone still struggles to auto-complete my texts. In other words: today, reality does not match fantasy.

The technology around Machine Learning and Artificial intelligence is real. Unlike crypto/web3, this technology has real potential. But it will take a few years before we see the real impact of AI. Technology by itself is useless. As Carmack explained recently on Twitter, technology is only important to build a great product that delivers value to the user. And we still need to (1) build such products and (2) see their value and real benefits. It’s still unclear if these benefits will come in new products (e.g., a new meeting app that summarizes your meetings) and will be delivered as improvements of existing ones (e.g., Zoom adding a feature to summarize your meetings).

John Carmack @ID_AA_Carmack

From a DM, just in case anyone else needs to hear this.

Very few companies will make a hit product. During the Gold Rush, fortune was made selling jeans, picks, and shovels, not mining gold. In this “AI” Gold Rush, most money will be made by developer tools, cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), and hardware manufacturers (Nvidia, AMD, etc.).

Calculators and spreadsheets did not replace accountants; they made them more efficient. AI will not replace software developers or creative writers but augment and make them more efficient.