Is this a story about AI?
"You have to say, Okay. I'll be a part of this world."
It's not evil. Unless you are very tightly involved in protecting the way things used to be done.
If your identity and sense of self are pegged to wrangling all the details, in low-level plumbing instead of providing guardrails and vision, then this new world is coming for you -- hard.
And you will lose the fight to stop it.
Expert bias is interesting in that, the more you understand something, the more you see. At some point you just merge with those details, that perspective, in a kind of hyper-resolution. And no one else around you notices -- is even able to notice -- the quirks that may drive you mad.
It is the fate of your experience as an "expert" to become obsessed with details that only matter to you. It's human overfitting.
Be the human in the loop
As you become over-aware, you lose sight of the real meaning of what you're working with. Which is usually something simpler and perhaps more experiential and tactical. The feels, the vibe, the why.
Speaking of which, neither Claude nor Gemini can empathize with being a monkey-brained dopamine sponge, so they'll never really be able to competently steer... although they've already learned how to keep you company.
If you use them to code, you won't understand all the code they create. If you design, you won't have your fingers on every detail they somehow render for you. But you can (and must) curate, guide, reject and construct. That's your new job as a person.
I reflected on this while photo-shopping a 6th finger out of an AI photograph... while using an AI-powered "remove" tool in Photoshop to do it.
No Rules
Both perfection and purity are lies. This is a battle that is revisited with every advancement and its creative adoption. There are no rules.
Art is, ultimately, manifest intent. At root, that's what it means to be human.
Your time will be spent doing the part you love, to get the result you intended in a form your sense of taste adores. And the irritating other busywork? The robot will do that part.... faster and cheaper than another human ever could.
So, no. Nothing will ever be the way it was before. You'll use your brain for other things. But (and after some in-depth experiments to get a personal understanding of what we're working with here in Q1 2026) I think there are several paths ahead that are going to be spectacular.
Extremely so.
You will replace others. Others will replace you. But, if this plays out well, everyone will get what they want.
Software is over. Long live the code.
But if you fight it, you're going to be a befuddled cowboy, staring into a cold abyss as the world sweeps right by. We'll see how it goes, I suppose.
Me? I'm going to do what I've always done. I'm an omnivorous creative. Whatever comes, I will bend it to my will and use it to create something amazing. This is no different, but the new capabilities are going to be unbounded.
Is it worth the investment? Ultimately, it may make "the economy" itself obsolete. You can't have an ROI if money doesn't exist anymore -- but that's a conversation for much later. We're not there yet.
Coming soon: Software is over. Long live the code.
Today: If you feel a certain way, this clip will resonate with you.
