I am sitting in front of a screen, waiting for AI to finish the task I have given it.
The work is moving. My hands are empty.
At home, I sometimes say the task out loud. In the office, I type it. Then comes the same pause—in a moment there will be something to check, correct, or send back. The decisions are still mine, but while I wait for the result, I sometimes miss the feeling of making something myself.
I asked a colleague whether it happens to him too.
He said yes.
It was a relief not to be the only one. I still did not know what to do with the feeling.
For years, programming gave me a quiet confidence: whatever happens, the craft will feed me. I know something that people need.
Lately, I say it more quietly.
I use AI every day, and I see how much it helps me. That is exactly why the dependence unsettles me.
I know there is some irony in that. For my entire working life I have depended on things I did not build: electricity, the internet, other people's software. I have never been an independent craftsman.
But now it is different. Some of the thinking itself happens outside me. I can hand off more work than I could do on my own, and then I have to understand it well enough to stand behind it.
It is like leverage. A few words set a lot of work in motion. The gains multiply. So do the mistakes.
More and more, I am a filter for what AI produces. I get more done without feeling more capable.
The direction is still mine. I choose what is worth building and how a product should feel, guided by my taste and experience. Whether that will be enough to earn a living, I do not know.
One conversation made all of this more concrete.
My former boss, who is also a friend, told me he was looking for a salaried job. He used to put teams together for other companies' projects. I was on one of them. He was the person paying us.
The projects had become fewer, he said. He connected it to AI.
I do not know how much of it is due to AI, how much to the economy, and how much to something else. What struck me was the reversal itself. The person who used to give me work was now looking for work.
After that, the question no longer sat at a comfortable distance.
I have a job. I am not looking for another.
But I realized that my peace of mind never came from the job alone. It also came from the belief that my craft would always be in demand. I took that belief for granted. I only noticed it when it started to shake.
When I asked myself what exactly frightened me, the answer turned out to be simple.
I am afraid of running out of money.
I am paying off loans on my home. The payments do not care what happens to my profession. That is why the question of AI and work is not abstract to me. It is personal.
Sometimes I spend a whole day thinking about what will happen to my profession, and by evening the possibilities and the payments are still the same. Only the day is gone.
I catch myself imagining the future in such detail that I am already living in it. Worry is a payment too, only on a loan I have not taken out yet.
And sometimes I remember days that seemed bad at the time. From here, they look good. I had more than I knew how to appreciate.
I wonder whether one day I will look back at today in the same way.
I have always depended on something and on someone. I just feel it more clearly now. The uncertainty is unlikely to go away.
I want to understand what is changing. I also want to live the day I have.
And to write. Writing is something I return to on my own, without anyone assigning it to me. I begin with a thought that is not yet clear, and it becomes clearer as I write it down.
While I write, my hands are not empty.
I hope these words reach someone who feels something similar. And that they recognize themselves in them, as I recognized myself in one short "yes".
I do not know what my work will look like in two years. Until then, I want to keep living, writing, and trying.
Comments