Well in the Industrial Revolution, the no-longer-necessary skilled craftsman became miserable, poorly paid cogs in service of their new automatic controllers. So a lot of us have that to look forward to.
Personally, I’ve switched back to the track I was on in my twenties: I spent the day doing moderately interesting work in a skilled trade, periodically having to haul 80lb-90lb steel machine parts up two flights of stairs in an un-air-conditioned, 100 degree manufacturing facility wearing heavy protective clothes and tools. I’ve worked in blue collar jobs before so I’m used to it, but I’ve seen a lot of developers say they’re going to be electricians or something. Good fucking luck! I’d conservatively estimate that 90% of developers I worked with are too soft, either emotionally or physically, to complete the first week of a years-long trade apprenticeship. The starting salary is only marginally better than working at Walgreens, and you’re expected to do a shitload of grunt work that is usually done by 20-year-olds. I foresee the entry-level retail, DoorDash, uber, instacart, et al scenes getting a whole lot nerdier over the next few years.
In general, as a person? Not at all. When discussing the tech industry that employed me for almost two decades, in total? You’re definitely not wrong. Especially after graduating from art school in 2024 to career change into technical artistry, seeing the very real damage generative AI was doing to people trying to enter the creative fields, and seeing the tech scene responses range from incredibly smug to outright jubilant. Suddenly HN and every other technical forum was full of overnight armchair philosophers making sweeping statements about art, artists, commercial art, and who deserved to be paid for art. (Coincidentally, since the tech job market slowed way down, far fewer tech people here seem so smug about people losing their careers to automation!) The prospect of sweeping tech industry job market disruptions used to make me feel bad, but I can’t really muster that up anymore. So yeah, sure. Despite it being a huge part of my life for a very long time, I’m pretty solidly in the “fuck the modern tech industry” camp right now, and I think it’s a pretty rational response.
They use AI to change their jobs into new kind of jobs already. Some old jobs will disappear, some new jobs will appear, and most old jobs will stay. But if you think your job is among those threatened, you should have started adapting already at least 1-2 years ago.
