When a tool becomes a requirement
Hiya! This might be my first "real" post and if so, then congrats (im not really sure to who…)! And so officially starts my writing journey.
As I mentioned in the intro, I'm not really sure when and exactly what I'll write about — I think I'll end up randomly choosing based on events that happen in my life. And today, so happens to be one of those days! As the title probably gives it away, this is about AI… wooo! Excitement !
To set the scene first, I think I should state my current view points on AI. Most of my thoughts here also come from the fact that I am a software engineer and have been programming for 10+ years. What I say today will probably focus on the volatile climate of the tech world, but that doesn't mean I'm ignoring the damage that AI has dealt to the more traditional creative fields (i.e. artists, writers, etc.).
I think I consider myself and optimistic realist when it comes to this topic. I acknowledge the pros of these new tools and software and how much more efficient we (as people) can become. I think its absolutely magical that quite literally anyone is now able to just go a release an iOS app of their own or create a website or video game or whatever. To me, the internet has always been (or is supposed to be) a democratic place. And this is just the next step of natural progression in truly enabling everyone to get in on the action. But with that freedom to partake in these activities, I believe we should also have the liberty to not. What do i mean? Simply put, I don't think anyone should be forced to use AI; at their job or in their personal life. Maybe a bit of a stretch but I think of comparing it following a complex recipe in the kitchen. Most meals you can make with the common tools one has available in their home and the set of ingredients on hand. But its also very possible to elevate those same meals with a wider tool set or some more niche ingredients in the pantry. It kind of just depends on the kind of meal I want to make and the mood that I am in. Like I said, maybe that's farfetched but it makes sense to me 🤷.
So, why am I writing this today? AI has been around for quite a while now so what changed? Sadly, it was a work thing lol. Thus far, I thought my company to be pretty "lax" with respect to the changes. We operate in a regulated industry so maybe AI is a bit slower to adopt than other places, but even so, we've typically been granted the freedom to adopt tools at our own discretion and make those choices for ourselves. Well today we had a company meeting and the entire purpose was to "shove the AI koolaid down our throats with no air to breath". AND to top it all off, our CEO quite literally gave us the option to walk away and leave the company with a severance package (he also said something like "but we care about you" and it was obviously quite fake). I found this to be pretty disrespectful, disingenuous, disconnected… basically any dis- word you can think of. I can't say that perhaps the writing wasn't on the wall, but the stark/blunt message is what felt the most insulting. I consider us to be a pretty fast moving company and most of my coworkers to be extremely hard working and intelligent. And most of us already use hella AI on the day to day. It was just a "wow" kind of moment where you realize that leaders just don't actually know what's happening in their own companies. The supposed reasoning behind this change was that our CEO realized he became "better" by using AI… If you were looking for more, I don't have anything for you. That was literally it lmao.
I'll admit that for the better part of the day after that announcement, I was just sad. Not really that the AI finally hit but more so that what I had believed to be a positive work place that had found the good balance of AI and self choice, was disappearing. After wallowing for a bit though, I kind of just started getting back to my normal day. From which by the time we reached the end of the work day, it really started to set in that well, I guess I'll just continue doing my job? NGL even to myself this felt pretty anticlimactic. I'm not in any place where I can, with true peace of mind, take the offered severance package and just leave a job. Also, its not like anywhere else will be any different. It just might mean more effort in finding the new job and "starting over again" which I never really find fun anyway.
Where does that leave me now? The more I think about it, the more I realize this was never really about AI. Because again… nothing actually changed. I'm still going to show up tomorrow and do my job the same way I did yesterday. What changed is the framing. Before, AI felt like a tool I could reach for. Now it feels like a requirement I'm being measured against. And that difference, even if it's subtle, kind of sucks. But also, I'm not naive. This is probably the direction every company is heading in. If it's not this one, it'll be the next one. So leaving doesn't really solve anything, it just resets the clock. So I guess my takeaway is pretty simple: I'll use AI because it's useful, not because someone told me to. And I'll keep questioning it, even if that becomes the unpopular thing to do. Because if the whole point of these tools is to make us better, then at some point you have to ask what "better" actually means.