Yes, our jobs are doomed by AI

Follow up from yesterday. I can argue both sides of anything.

I asked ChatGPT to make a list of jobs that AI will create. Here’s what it told me:

• AI Engineer
• Regulatory Analyst (AI)
• Data Analyst (AI-focused)
• Prompt Engineer
• AI Interaction Designer
• AI Product Manager
• AI Ethicist

And like a dozen more. Notice anything?

These jobs already exist, it just tacked on AI. Well, maybe not the ethicist. And we know that’s the last thing to get budget.

I expected it to say construction jobs for data center creation & nuclear power engineers. I like to write with the Rule of 3 and I was stuck, so that’s why I asked.

But this little exercise made me realize 2 things:

👉The “AI won’t replace [job title], but a [job title] using AI will” line is nonsense.

Last week Kalshi aired an ad during the NBA Finals that was entirely created with AI.

Honestly, it’s an absolute banger. And it cost only $2,000 to make.

You could say “See? A video producer with AI *did* replace a video producer without AI!” But you’d be completely missing the forest for the trees. It undoubtedly replaced *dozens* of people. That literally is taking away jobs.

And you also have to account for how this will affect what companies can charge, and therefore, pay. Earlier this year the Goldman Sachs CEO said that AI can draft 95% of an IPO prospectus in minutes. Do we really think market forces will allow someone to get paid the same for doing 5% of the work? Or that we need 95% of the documentation writers?

👉No one cares about quality as much as they say.

What happened to your inbox is what’s going to happen to everything. Poorly customized clutter. And no one will care.

“Done is better than perfect” used to be my go to phrase for getting something 90% of the way there and pushing it out. Still is, honestly. I write my posts/blogs 1 hour before I send them. I’m sure they would be better if I took a week on them.

But spending 10x the time for the last 10% still doesn’t make sense. Nothing that I post is really that important.

AI changes that phrasing. It’s now “Done is better than mediocre.”

Here’s what AI and people have in common: they both suck at attention to detail.

Had I thought about it a minute longer, my Rule of 3 examples would have been data center construction, nuclear power engineers, and proofreaders of AI generated writing.

Someone’s gotta look over sales proposals, job descriptions, performance reviews, customer support articles, and contracts, right?

What happened to your inbox will happen to everything. Job descriptions and performance reviews are already a copy & paste hellscape. AI puts that on steroids.

And no one will care! We’ll become just as desensitized to more important documents, like pitch decks and (dare I say) contracts, that hack jobs become the norm.

Because proofreading sucks. Not many are detail-oriented enough to do it on a consistent basis.

AI hallucinations will be missed. But the business world will make it up in volume.

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.