Someone using AI won't take your job. AI will

AI is getting better every day. Rather than let it replace us, the common advice is to take advantage of this improvement by learning to incorporate AI into your work. You may have heard this mantra:

“AI won't take your job. Someone using AI will.”

Already, AI can boost productivity in coding by about 40%, depending on the task. Instead of spending the extra hours doing nothing, they'll write more code and make more money. A win-win for everyone, except the developer who doesn't use AI and gets left behind.

The same is true in many other domains. AI-human double reading teams can detect breast cancer more accurately than all-human teams, which could free up doctors to diagnose more patients and reduce wait times. OpenAI's o3-mini-high helped physicist Weiguo Yin solve an extension of the Ising model, pushing forward research in materials and superconductors.

It's natural to project this trend continuing. But today I am going to make the opposite claim. Someone using AI won't take your job. AI will.

Learning to use AI is not enough. Unlike previous technologies, AI agents will act as competitors in the job market, not just tools. In order to survive, we must outcompete AI and do what it can't. If we only use it as a tool and outsource our thinking, our human contribution becomes unnecessary, and agents will take over the job without us.

I understand that this is a controversial claim and an uncomfortable one to think about. Don't worry, I'm not a total doomer, and I have some strategies for how to really upskill in the AI age if what I'm saying is true. But first, I want to show you why I think the popular narrative on the subject doesn't hold up, and might even be actively harming you.

AI Agents Are Coming For Your Job

As the internet became widespread, many industries faced decline, like traditional news publishing and brick-and-mortar businesses. But by learning how to use the internet, new industries came up, and old ones were able to thrive.

Newspapers like The New York Times went online, selling more than ever before. Companies like Amazon and eBay sprang up in e-commerce, while small businesses created websites to attract new customers to their physical locations. Using the internet as a tool, people could share content around the world on platforms like YouTube and WordPress.

AI agents are not just a tool.

AI agents perform entire workflows end-to-end with minimal human involvement. Sure, they are imperfect, and sometimes need input as they go along. They are also not widely available. But these flaws will be ironed out, and AI agents will act more like competitors or coworkers than workplace tools.

If code becomes cheaper to produce, won't companies just have a lot more people writing code? Yes, if code becomes cheaper, companies will want more of it. But it will be agents writing the cheap code, not humans. The same applies to other domains.

Unlike human workers, AI agents can copy themselves endlessly and never get tired. We're seeing this in coding with tools like Replit that build entire apps from prompts in minutes. So if an AI agent is better and cheaper than a human, that human is in trouble, even if they know how to use AI.

Knowing how to use AI is not a moat. Everyone has access to the same tools, and they can ask the tools how to use them better, or simply let them operate autonomously as agents.

Right now, AI lacks agency and struggles with inferring requirements. This makes prompt engineering an important skill for using AI. But as agents improve, they will automate the process of prompt engineering, and smarter models will make prompt engineering less necessary overall.

Or you can just ask ChatGPT to teach you. Start with “You are a professional prompt engineer making $1M/year. Teach me prompt engineering.” Then give it your crappy prompt and ask it to fix it.

AI tools will give everyone superpowers. But when everyone's super, no one will be.

“And when everyone's super... no one will be.”
 —Syndrome, The Incredibles (Pixar, 2004)

Staying Relevant in the Face of AI

If AI agents are coming for our jobs, and learning to use AI isn't enough, how do we actually stay relevant in the face of AI?

I'm not saying don't use AI tools. Use them. They will cut through the slog, saving you hours for creative thinking and decision making. And they can serve as sounding boards and debate partners, amplifying your output even more.

I used ChatGPT heavily as a debate partner to iron out the ideas in this article. But every word is mine. You can tell because ChatGPT would never add in relevant Pixar quotes and link the videos.

In fact, I'd even go so far as to say you can let AI automate 90% of your work and still come out happier, more productive, and more successful.

But if you let AI automate 90% of your work, that last 10% better be killer. Anyone can use AI and get a solid result, so the mastery you put into this part is your edge. Refuse to automate away the core of your work.

And in order to master this 10%, you must master your craft. So study and learn almost as if AI didn't exist, except study even harder, and use AI to help you learn faster. As AI agents roll out, you need to be better than the AI at what you do. You can interpret better broadly: you might be better technically, emotionally, or creatively. But you must be better.

This might sound like a losing game, but it's one you have to win if you want to keep playing. And don't underestimate the AI. The latest models are extremely capable, and they're still the worst they'll ever be.

Stealing Apple's catchphrase, succeeding in the AI era isn't only about learning to use AI: it's also about becoming insanely great at your job.

AI agents can even use other AI as a tool, so we have to be better at that part too. This means that as more people use AI, staying relevant is ultimately about directly competing with the AI and being much better than it at some key skill. Sometimes that means better at guiding and supervising AI, but often it means better at writing, coding, research, or anything else.

Look at the Sistine Chapel, The Lion King, even Microsoft Excel. That's what you call making something with soul. That soul is too large and awkwardly shaped to fit into a prompt, and no amount of prompt engineering will change that. You have to get into the weeds of the paint, the words, the code, or whatever your chosen medium is.

Maybe there's a limited market for this kind of soul. Companies like Duolingo are already replacing human contractors with AI, and it might become harder for humans to adapt and compete to the point where there will simply be less people employed. And not everyone uses labor as a source of meaning. But for those who do, this is the best way to produce work that far outclasses what an infinitely replicable AI agent can do.

Here's how to stay afloat in the AI age:

• Learn to use AI tools. Use them to generate and test ideas, learn new things, and focus on the most exciting and creative parts of your work.
• You may find that AI agents can do much of your work for you. Resist the temptation. Use AI, but keep the core of your work so it can be exceptional.
• Become extremely competent. AI trains on massive datasets full of mediocrity. It won't replace all workers, but it will replace the mediocre ones.
• Be irreplaceable. AI is trained on the sum of human output on the internet. If another human can do your job, it will soon be a fair bet that AI can too.

Some people say AI will never be able to write scalable code, or craft emotionally compelling stories, or whatever else. Really, we just don't know: AI keeps surprising us, and it's possible future systems will be able to do all these things and more, or not.

But if there's one thing AI can never do, at least in the current paradigm, it's care. AI doesn't really care about the work it's doing or anything else. Obsession always shows through in the final product, especially in the hundreds of tiny decisions that bring life to your work.

With the AI tools of the future, anyone can easily become a writer, coder, or even prompt engineer. The barrier to entry falls to zero. But in a flood of adequate results that even autonomous agents can produce, only a few will stand out.

“Your only limit is your soul. What I say is true: Anyone can cook. But only the fearless can be great.”
 —Chef Gusteau, Ratatouille (Pixar, 2007)

Getting paid for our labor keeps us fed. But it's also a source of power and leverage, and an opportunity to radiate passion and meaning into the world. I'll be writing and coding till I die, even if the AI overlords lock me in a room with a laptop. I don't just want to manage a team of agents, I also want to craft things I care about. If you want to keep doing what you do for leverage and not just as a hobby, now is the time to upskill fast and stay ahead of the AI — because someone using AI won't take your job, AI will.

Related Posts

• Why AI Can't Do Your Laundry — Too often, AI does what we humans want to do, and not what we can't or won't do.