AI vs Me
‘Sure. I can help you with that. Here are some ways AI can do your job faster and more efficiently than you do it and make your skillset obsolete. Would you like me to list them?’
Chat GPT, eh? It stalks the businesses of the land like that obsequious, overly confident, toxic new employee who’s planning to marry the boss’s daughter. It’s a fake-ass pedantic know-it-all that’s reorganizing your department, replacing your assistants, rerouting your workflow, reordering your files, and repurposing your job description. And don’t tell ChatGPT everyone’s going for after-work drinks or you’ll end up at a KaraokeGPT bar all night, singing Daft Punk songs and doing the robot dance.
Nevertheless, sooner or later you’re going to need to become friends with whoever (or whatever) is going to marry the boss’s daughter, otherwise you’ll arrive at work one morning to find everyone is humming Get Lucky except you. And before you can say ‘lay offs’ you’ll be doing street karaoke, singing Buddy Can You Spare A Dime, but nobody can because Artificial Intelligence has also taken their jobs.
Offices everywhere will be staffed entirely by technology called Gemini, Claude, Grok, and Perplexity. It will be like Planet Of The Apes with Charlton Heston discovering a massive pink highlighter pen half buried in a beach of shredded W2 employee forms.
So I’ve been brainstorming strategies to AI-proof my career. Unfortunately, I’ve identified absolutely none whatsoever. Of course, I could resort to asking ChatGPT for AI-proofing career ideas, but I don’t want to give it the satisfaction of providing a link to LinkedIn Premium, or a website promoting online Plumbing and Locksmithing certification.
Not that I consider myself above those professions, but I’m too old to be summoned at 3AM to unblock some drunk student’s grimy toilet. Besides, I’ve spent the better part of my life perfecting the fine art of making the shadows in the wide shot a little bit bluer. Surely that’s a venerable knowledge base worth honoring and preserving? If only with a respectable hourly-rate or reasonable fixed bid.
But let’s face it, “Make the color of this scene match the color of the previous scene” is a straightforward AI prompt that any old fool can give their chat bot. So why would clients hire me instead of using Artificial Intelligence to bring polish and pizzazz to their projects? It’s a very good question. I’m glad you asked. And to use Chat GPT’s own words against it, “I can help you with that …”
Personally, I tend to think of the wide-gamut masterpieces I export as unique examples of exquisite artisanal craftsmanship. Artificial Intelligence, on the other hand, is simply mass-produced garbage slapped together by underage labor in a third world factory. The museum-quality artifacts from my studio will last forever, whereas the cheap junk ground out by AI’s digital sweatshop will fall apart within two weeks.
In other words, think of me standing proudly behind a sturdy trestle table at the local Farmer’s Market, offering an array of prize-winning organic fruits and vegetables and a selection of mouthwatering homemade pies. AI, on the other hand, is some mega-chain convenience store self-checkout trying to sell you a can of ultra-processed turnip puree.
You get the picture, and it doesn’t have six fingers and only half a leg like most AI rendered image schlock.
Honestly, just look at the insipid cyborg cliche it created to accompany this very blog post. And I gave Gemini such smart and precise prompts as well. So keep giving work to real humans for creative work, and not some jumped-up HAL wannabe that sends all your personal info to Google or Apple or wherever.
Besides, these days my hourly rate is almost as cheap as an AI pro subscription anyway, so you’re not saving any money, either. You could sign up for a free month long trial and then cancel, I suppose, but who ever remembers to cancel these things?
Not me. I’m still paying $29.99 a month for LinkedIn Premium and I haven’t visited the site in months. Thanks for that suggestion, ChatGPT