Before we get started today, AI is a hot topic. It’s everywhere whether we like it or not. I highly recommend you look into the state of AI yourself as well as review the articles I have linked for context. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy.
It’s hard to walk outside of your home these days without getting hit in the face with the latest “AI” enhanced product. Instagram? It has AI (or not), your favorite fast food place? AI enhanced order taking (or not), and even some of the largest companies in the world are utilizing AI to improve their products (or not).
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
AI as it exists today can be a helpful tool if used appropriately. What most people fail to realize is that AI is just a tool. It is not a magic bullet that will fix all of humanity’s problems. After all, when is the last time you used a product that was legitimately enhanced by AI?
I have used AI to look through sanitized log files to look for anything fitting certain criteria and it legitimately saved me time finding the issue and fixing it. As a Systems Engineer, I spend a lot of my life reading log files but sometimes I just don’t have the mental fortitude required. AI in its current form is great at processing information and looking for patterns. It excels at this task far better than any human.
On the other hand, it’s not the best at understanding context. Maybe the application didn’t start because the database isn’t reachable on the network. An IT Professional would know then we need to check the database server and look there to see why the database isn’t available. It could be a network problem, a database integrity issue that requires in-depth analysis, or maybe someone just unplugged the server’s ethernet cable (yeah, that does happen).
AI overall has been coached to guess less often on obtuse issues like this and I have seen the prompts altered to fit this methodology. But what happens when we just blindly trust AI?
Earlier in 2026, a Claude powered agent deleted an entire production database and the backups. Claude is often lauded as the best AI agent out there but as we can see here it is not infallible.
AI can help build a prototype even. If you’ve got an idea for an app that helps track the health of your chickens and the state of their coop but have no idea how to start. There’s an AI agent for that. Take that idea out to your nearest programmer and get that thing ready for the real world. Resist the urge to publish that Claude generated solution or you just might find yourself in a situation like this fellow here.
Sure this “works” but you wouldn’t want to get on a train that drifts both tracks would you?
AI is Coming for My Job!
The number one point of feedback we received from coworkers in my company when we first started talking about AI was a loud and prominent
“I like to code, I don’t want AI to take that away from me.”
Thankfully, at my company leadership has listened to the general feedback of not shoveling AI onto the product or workers just to satisfy the demand of ‘What are you doing with AI (in your software)?‘
The real issue is that while AI is good at ingesting information and providing feedback, it is not good at knowing why the information it ingested is good. Why are the bolts located where they are on modern vehicles? what if we just moved them to a different spot just because? Ford may have learned this lesson before it cost people their lives. On that same note, they are hiring back many of the same engineers they have laid off. With the true goal being for them to train the AI bots to have their knowledge before tossing the engineers to the curb once again.
The other side of this is the talent pipeline. Any manager or executive also needs to be aware that if we eliminate junior roles from our workforce that there will no longer be senior employees in a few years to guide these tools.
Being totally honest, if I were to get a job where I was reviewing house blueprints designed by an AI agent. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to know if what it provided was a valid design or not. If in a few years we trust AI do to the design work, it won’t be until the later parts of the process that we realize that something isn’t right.
AI is great at automating redundant work, much like scripts and programs are. But I cannot stress enough that the remaining 40% of the job where intuition, judgement, and experience live. You know, the most important part of complex ideas, is where AI fails the most. The part that makes work human.
In my own experience, I asked AI to help me design a rather complicated system. I wanted to pull data from an Amazon S3 bucket (cloud based storage) to a local server. Then I wanted to use my local database software to restore this downloaded data into one of five “slots” on this database server. That’s not too bad until it was also added that this was meant to be run by non-technical users. So I had to let users pick from a list of 30 potential databases to go in one of five slots and restore these databases so they worked without the user having to do anything.
Using Claude, I was able to get part of the way there but even after 8 hours of working on this task, I was nowhere near a valid prototype that I could take to the team. This project ended up getting put back on the shelf for now. But eventually we will have to go back to it, and will that code that AI gave me be even worth revisiting? This was a real blind leading the blind situation, and in the end we were given something that looked like a car. In reality, it was a rock. Because that thing isn’t going anywhere.
Should we start again from scratch? At this point, that’s a future Bojack problem.
I won’t sugar coat things. There are CEOs and other leadership of companies that don’t know how volatile AI can be. There have already been jobs affected by AI, and there will still likely be more as companies try AI inspired layoffs. Convinced that “no we will do it right.”
How Do We Deal With This?
We as workers do have tools we can utilize if we feel that our jobs are in danger of being taken from AI. If the business tells you that “you have nothing to worry about” it might be time to start dusting off that resume. Instead of waiting for the layoff to come, plan ahead and start applying. Who knows what you will find if you don’t try?
Don’t forget that you are valuable to the company. They hired you because you were/are the best fit for the role. They need you and your expertise more than you need them.
I know I’ve said it before on here but it remains true. If you want to start a YouTube channel, write a book, or have some training for your career that you have been thinking about taking. There’s no better time than now. After all, it’s much less stressful to look for a job when you already have one. No one has more bargaining power than a worker who has options. Never let them make you forget that.
In my humble opinion, we as consumers are already doing a wonderful job of rejecting “AI” products and forcing these companies to back track. After all, if AI really took all our jobs and they weren’t paying the AI then who is left to buy the products?
If the general population is broke, it sure as heck won’t be AI bots buying Netflix subscriptions.
On that same note, if you use AI that doesn’t make you a bad person. A tool used appropriately is great. That’s why we made hammers and screw drivers. But if you try to use only a screw driver to build a house then it is going to have some problems.
This was a little heavier of a topic. I once again would heavily recommend reviewing the articles I shared and doing your own research on AI.
But let’s end on a happy note for the dog lovers out there.
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