AI - Adapt or become Irrelevant

I used to think the biggest threat to my career was a younger, hungrier version of me willing to work eighty hours a week for half the pay. Then generative AI entered the room. Now, there is a famous quote buzzing around tech circles from Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang: 

"You're not going to lose your job to an AI, but you're going to lose your job to someone who uses AI."

 It is a neat, comforting little phrase.

Whether it was Jensen Huang's quote or the similar quote from Richard Baldwin the messaging is the same AI is coming ... and may be coming for your job! Here at reTHINK I focus on bucking the status quo, I am not afraid to tell my wife she looks fat in that dress, so I am not going to be afraid to tell you the hard truth - AI doesn't just stand for Artificial Intelligence anymore. In the real world  it stands for Adapt or become Irrelevant. 

Let's look at what is actually happening behind the scenes.

Your job can be replaced by an AI agent or tool. If your day-to-day tasks consist of routine, predictable work, a company isn't going to hire someone using AI to replace you. They are just going to use the AI tool directly and cut the headcount entirely to save on the budget. And if they do replace you with a human using AI, that person might be a lower-cost offshore resource who suddenly has the capability of a senior staff member because of the tools at their fingertips. They are going to be just as good if not better at a fraction of the cost.

It is not all doom and gloom. If you are doing specialized hands-on work or highly complex troubleshooting, you have a solid buffer zone for now. The algorithms cannot change a tire or physically wire a server rack (until the robots come)

But for the rest of us, the only way forward is to stop treating these tools like a passing fad. We need to Adapt. We need to figure out exactly how AI can augment our specific skill sets before someone else does it for us. Over the next few months, I want to dive into the practical tools that actually matter for our field, focusing on how to integrate them without losing the human edge. Of course we can't go over every AI tool/solution out there but we will try hitting on the high level different types of tools and how we can learn form them. We will learn to Adapt before we become Irrelevant.

What is one part of your daily routine that you secretively wish an AI could just handle for you? 

 "You're not going to lose your job to an AI, you're going to Adapt"