Thirty years ago, I was a simple code cutter. I had a fat HTML encyclopedia and new clients every month, some who would pay more than 500 Irish pounds for each web page. I had a poster like the image at the top of this post. Life was simple in the days before Wordpress.
Today I watch programmers with a whole lot more expertise than I had who have seen their livelihoods eradicated by easy vibe coding. Several of the computer programmers I trained are worried about losing their jobs with companies that want to cut salary costs. Some companies see better bottom lines by having fewer programmers who know how to prompt AI.
And there are other sectors where people will be replaced by new AI services as well. We cannot turn back this tide because what’s happening with AI is branded as ‘innovation’ and we have been trained to respect innovation as the key ingredient that makes things nicer for society.
I listened to a piece on Ireland’s RTE Radio One This Week t alk about AI. It was more about AI in education than AI in society but one of the thoughts meandered along the lines of what Irish people will vote for in upcoming elections. Should Irish people vote for governments that recognise what is happening? Should there be strong structures put in place to support those who will remain jobless because they missed the AI march to productivity? Will there be more political pressure to vote for those who will guarantee a certain degree of protection? I don’t hear those calls to action on Irish national radio but we’re not in the election season yet.
In my day to day life, I believe in the good AI has brought. There is new progress in science. There are ways AI trains people who struggle with basic literacy. I am working with people who have improved their daily lives after they upskilled their digital literacies.
Over on LinkedIn I sometimes feel I’m sitting on a third rail. People I respect think the Right Thing means locking away access to AI services. They refuse to see what is happening right now. That’s just like the Amish people I knew in Lancaster County Pennsylvania when I lived there as a high school student.
Redlining AI is not going to help the world and lambasting it will not enhance your career. If you feel threatened by AI, you need to test the new tools. You need to spend weeks of self-study, not just scroll through five minutes of diatribes about how AI is killing the human condition. You need to see how AI can multiply yourself, and if it does not work for you, then try again every few months.
I only hard coded web pages for an 18 month period and then I discovered templates inside PHP scripts before watching Wordpress take my job. Now machines can code a site as fast as you can give verbal commands to an AI. I think that’s remarkable to observe. It’s so remarkable to watch code appear on a screen and then to see a project working. It’s empowering to build something, even though it’s just with your voice commands. And the more you build more, the better you discover how to use AI effectively.
There’s a lot of fun in doing these things with a machine or with a friend on a collaborative project.