Structurally, we will change. “Hype” gets thrown at AI constantly, usually by people pointing at a mediocre chatbot reply and concluding the whole thing is overrated. But hype implies inflation beyond a thing’s real value. What I see is closer to the opposite, such as generative systems now, quantum computing arriving on a horizon closer than most are prepared for, discussed with less seriousness than they deserve, not more. Perhaps only discussed in seriousness within its own circles.
But the technology is not the whole story. What people do with it is, from my perspective is what is interesting. There are two completely different relationships, producing opposite outcomes. The first is extraction without intention, like a blog post nobody asked for, an image with no idea behind it, or music with no soul within it. A summary of a summary, or content without any value behind it. This is what we know as slop, content with no reasonable center, made because making is now nearly free, not because anything needed to be said. It floods feeds and inboxes, reproducing the social-media noise problem except the noise can now multiply itself without a human typing the caption.
The second use is AI as leverage for people who previously had no way in. This is both on good and bad.
Think about what’s happening at the edges of fields right now. A solo founder shipping a working SaaS product in a weekend, once was a hired team and months or years of runway. Imagine a small manufacturer prototyping with AI-assisted design that once required an industrial design firm. Or a non-native speaker writing and publishing with a fluency that once took a decade to earn. Even the researcher in a resource-poor institution running analysis that once required a university supercomputing grant. None of this is slop, they are legible and highly-skilled professionals and industries, no a lowered barrier bringing into existence what genuinely would not have existed otherwise. The entry bar to creation dropping for the first time in a very complex matter, both causing society and industries to face advantages and problems at the same time.
The difference between the two uses isn’t the tool. It’s intention and taste, having something to say, and using the technology to say it better, rather than as a replacement for having anything to say at all.
The Scarcity on the Other Side
Here is the part most AI conversations leave out, and it matters if you’re early in a career right now.
Lowering the entry bar does not lower the bar for excellence. It raises it. When everyone can produce something, the value of producing something exceptional increases. At the same time, something colder is happening at the top: the positions that survive automation that is requiring genuine judgment, architectural thinking, knowing what should be built rather than what merely can be, are becoming scarce as never before. What it comes down to is which side of that line you're on. Almost everyone assumes it's the right one, and that assumption is exactly the thin line nobody controls.
Everyone sees this, so everyone rushes toward it. For example, tech leads, system architects, the people who understand what’s underneath the interface, these roles are suddenly flooded with people who, three years ago, had no relationship with the field at all, now calling themselves AI experts after learning to write a good prompt. The competition for the few positions that won’t be automated will be more brutal than competition has been in any field in living memory, precisely because the entry bar dropped. You’re not just competing with other people. You’re competing with a technology that improves on a timeline no human development plan can match. This happens across the industries.
Here is the part nobody wants to say plainly: there will not be enough seats. Those who use AI as a genuine extension of disciplined craft, going deeper into a field rather than skipping the depth entirely will be the scarce resource markets fight for. Everyone else competes for a shrinking set of roles against a system that never sleeps and improves every second. It might sound like a harsh statement, which only time will be able to judge how true it ever was.
What This Asks of Us
None of this is reason for despair, or to retreat from the tools. It’s reason to be exact about why you’re using them. The lowered barrier is a gift to those with something real to build and previously lacking the means. It’s a trap for those who mistake output for substance. The coming wave, quantum computing folded into these same systems, will only deepen the split. The noise will get louder. The scarcity at the top will get sharper.
The only real position to take is the old one in new clothes: build the thing only you could have built. Use the tool to go further into your own work, not to disappear into the work everyone else is also generating. That has always separated value from noise. It simply matters more now, because the cost of making noise has collapsed to zero, which means the only thing left to distinguish you is whether you had something worth making in the first place. That is the only truth that still remains.
Keep it up and see you around,
Tom