at work they're showing us how to use AI tools like Copilot to help in our day to day tasks.
I have many reasons why I will not use those tools, going from lack of accuracy, lack of ethics, and a higher waste of energy.
But my main reason is this:
I will do things the hard way. I will learn how to do things the hard way.
Because AI is a subscription. And when the world is dependant on AI, they will raise the price of that subscription.
And when the company I work for decides that paying for AI is too expensive for their bottom line, they will remove it.
But I will still know how to work.
It's started already. Not with individual consumers so much as corporate customers. The trouble is, every AI query costs way more to run than they've been charging, and they were banking on the costs coming down in the same way as other tech costs, like storage. But they haven't -- they've only gotten more expensive -- and these companies are running at enormous losses that they can only cover with constant VC funding.
So yeah, if things had gone the way they planned, they would have waited until people were a lot more dependent on AI than they are to jack up the prices, and their costs would be low enough that they could make a huge profit. But the financials are starting to look pretty dire. It's an open question which companies will even survive long term -- so it might not be a question of "will the AI be too expensive" but "will the AI even be available."
I'm 43. If I started using AI to do all my work, and then I had to stop using it, I would still have my previous experience to fall back on. I'd probably have to relearn some stuff, and it would be annoying, but I could do it.
If you never learned how in the first place? Well, you can still learn. But it'll take you longer and it'll be even more annoying. Possibly long enough that it could damage your career for a time, as you try to catch up on ways of working that are entirely new to you. Don't do that to yourself.
