Yes, you should be worried about AI taking your job - but not in the way you might think. The real threat isn’t AI itself, but rather your colleagues who can use it effectively. Let me explain.
Not so long ago, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, claimed that we are going to see a one-person company worth a billion dollars. What does he mean by that? And how is such a bold claim possible?
The fact is, Generative AI tools such as Claude and ChatGPT have democratized learning and practicing many domains of expertise. In the context of a company, you need various areas of expertise to deliver the product or services to the customer. This ranges from understanding the customer, designing products and brands, developing and building them, and eventually marketing and selling them.
Traditionally, these skills require talented teams with years of experience working under the direction of a team leader to deliver high-quality results. The team leader sets the direction and strategy, while team members execute that plan using their hard-earned skills. In many roles, team members may not even need to critically evaluate the objective or direction, but simply execute the given tasks. For example, it’s quite common for software engineers to receive clear specifications for a project and write code according to those specifications, without questioning the overall strategy. The reason is that producing the work is difficult, requires extreme focus and creativity, and at the same time involves lots of manual and repetitive work. This is known to many managers, and it is virtually impossible to request one person to do all that.
The biggest change that comes with AI is that it enables rapid progression from idea to final result, especially for those who can think strategically about direction and desired outcomes. Managers and leaders no longer need large teams of engineers and designers to bring their vision to life. Instead, they can rely on a smaller group of individuals who understand the vision and can leverage generative AI to handle much of the groundwork. These skilled professionals can then focus on steering the AI-generated results towards the requested vision, producing high-quality work more efficiently. This shift allows for faster iteration and potentially more innovative outcomes, as the human element is focused on critical thinking and creative direction rather than time-consuming manual tasks.
The claim by Sam is the extreme version of this but possible. If someone has a crystal clear vision on what steps to take, or can quickly decide on their next action, the leverage they get when using AI is virtually unlimited. As models get smarter, they can brainstorm their vision with the models and then execute on it. Get help from AI to evaluate and then move forward.
Now back to your job. Should you be worried about AI regarding your job? I think you should be. Not about some robot taking your job but your annoying colleague who keeps talking about AI and playing with it. Learning what you can do with it can help you elevate your thinking and open doors to new possibilities. In 2024, no one is going to hire the developer who can’t use ChatGPT to produce, test, and debug code. And a similar wave is underway for most other white-collar and creative jobs.
So what are the skills that are necessary to get ahead of your game? First of all, leverage AI to remove as much mundane work as possible out of your way to get your job done. Preferably, you want to spend most of your time doing work which has high impact. The less time spent on mundane work, the more you have for high-impact tasks.
Think deeper about the work you’re doing and its implications. I think the answer lies in returning to our basic human nature and improving those fundamental skills. This includes skills such as critical thinking, communication, curiosity, empathy, adaptability, collaboration, and strategic thinking. These skills have always made the difference but in this era will be more important than ever.