Will AI Take Your Job? Maybe.

Will this parable be a waste of your time? Maybe.

Here’s a modern take on a famous Chinese parable¹².

A knowledge worker decided to try ChatGPT.

His friends worried he’d soon be replaced by AI.

“Maybe,” he said, and started mastering the tool.

Within months, he automated much of his job, impressing his boss.

His colleagues congratulated him on the promotion.

“Maybe,” he replied, continuing to automate more.

Soon, the company realised AI could handle all of the work, and they laid off the team, including him.

His family feared he would never find work again.

“Maybe,” he said, and took freelance AI projects to pay the bills.

His severance let him experiment, and he built a small AI tool that started to make good money.

Friends said it was a blessing he lost his job.

“Maybe,” he answered, and kept building.

Photo by Boys in Bristol Photography on Unsplash

So many of us are trying to understand what’s going to happen with AI. Will it take our jobs? How will new grads learn? Why build something today if AI will be able to build it in 6 months? Will humans even survive AI?

I don’t have the answers, and I don’t suggest we ignore them. They matter. We must try to make sense of the exponential pace of AI even though we don’t have to keep up with it.

But we don’t need to lose sleep over the daily flood of AI news feeling like the world is falling apart. It might be, but in truth we don’t know.

In the face of accelerating change and deep uncertainty, the wisest response is the same as it was thousands of years ago:

‘Maybe.’

1. Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.”

The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.”

The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.

— Alan Watts

2. This week I’ve been on holidays with my parents who I haven’t seen since 2021. Reading news about the ever-increasing pace of AI progress can make you think it’s the most important thing in the world. Spending time with your family puts things into perspective. Call your parents if they’re still alive.