AI is not the Death of Things

It feels like not a day goes by without a plethora of posts that AI is killing XYZ. This job is dead. This product won't survive. This entire discipline is now obsolete. Yet much of the rhetoric feels reminiscent of previous technological hype cycles.

I cannot deny seeing changes ahead. If you are merely good at the mechanics of your job, as soon as these things can get automated you will face massive challenges. Things like taste, judgement, critical thinking, though, still have value and I cannot currently envision that this is changing fundamentally.

Consider how digital content was supposed to kill the print industry. And while the Washington Post decides to lay off 30% of its staff, we still see smaller, high-quality niche publications sprout up and grow.

Video games have been around for a while and the quality of graphics, sound, and gameplay mechanics can be astounding. And yet we still see plenty of tabletop games being released and played, with the gaming category (which in its reporting combines video and tabletop games) being the strongest category on Kickstarter.

You can still buy vinyl records, and to just in random antique shops or flea markets, but at places like Target. All that despite MP3s and streaming.

Certain things will shift. Economic models will need to change and adapt. Maybe the Saas-pocalypse we are currently seeing in the market is a first indicator of that. But just like the internet made the long tail viable, AI will usher in new forms of businesses and operating models - such as the solopreneur who builds a company with agents taking on tasks that were previously either time-consuming or costly to outsource. And that doesn't have to mean the end of all existing things.