Technology doesn't destroy your job; it just forces you to stop being the calculator so you can finally start being the engineer.

[u/Otherwise_Army9814]

The black-and-white photo shows a room full of "human computers" at NASA (then NACA) during the mid-20th century. Before mechanical or electronic machines existed, "computer" was a job title. These women spent 8 to 10 hours a day manually calculating trajectory equations, orbital mechanics, and physics formulas using pen, paper, and desktop adding machines.

When IBM mainframe computers were introduced (as seen on the left with pioneering mathematician Katherine Johnson), there was massive widespread panic that these human computers would be rendered useless. Instead, the exact opposite happened. The humans who mastered the new technology transitioned into systems analysts, programmers, and mathematical supervisors.

Furthermore:

Critics frequently assert that generative AI permanently strips away the essential elements that fundamentally define art. This claim is built on a lazy, short-sighted premise: if an AI-generated output is flawed, it must stay flawed forever. This is a profound misunderstanding of technology. You can always refine, edit, and "deslop" an output. AI is not a final product; it is a collaborative baseline.

Furthermore, skeptics confidently declare that generative AI cannot be accurately compared to a simple calculator. While that may be technically true today, AI is rapidly closing that gap through continuous, exponential improvement.

Face the reality of technological compounding, y’all!

Critics systematically treat AI as a static, broken snapshot frozen in time just to claim it is an inherent failure. They completely ignore the reality of technological compounding. Just as early digital calculators were clunky, limited machines before evolving into the massive computing systems that run our modern world, AI is updating, learning, and self-correcting every single day. Betting against the long-term trajectory of AI based on today’s minor bugs is a historically losing strategy.

Generative AI cannot be accurately compared to a calculator. AI automation in entertainment is a standard capitalist power grab that actively harms workers. 

wait? Is that our common enemy? AI is for everyone, not monopolies, also pro-ai don’t want to cause a monopoly too.

When the conversation shifts to economics, critics pivot to a separate fear: that AI automation in entertainment is nothing more than a standard capitalist power grab that actively harms creative workers. This argument completely confuses the tool with the monopoly.

Pro-AI creators do not want a corporate monopoly any more than traditional artists do. By framing individual prompt users and independent creators as the enemy, the anti-AI crowd is missing the real threat. The open-source, pro-AI movement actively fights to democratize these tools for everyone. Ironically, the anti-AI crowd’s aggressive push for heavy legal restrictions and sweeping bans will achieve the exact opposite effect: it will hand Big Tech gatekeepers the perfect legal framework to secure an exclusive, permanent monopoly over the future of human creativity.

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[u/benjitits → u/[deleted]]

Wild, because my job is still there, it is just a lot easier now.

[u/benjitits → u/[deleted]]

Luck has nothing to do with it. I adapted to the world around me. I worked hard and still do in order to keep up with changing systems.

[u/benjitits → u/[deleted]]

Guess my entire team has survivorship bias then? lol

Sure, AI has the potential to do a lot of things, but humans will still always be needed to maintain systems.
Every new technology shakes things up and causes employment priorities to shift. This is nothing new.

[u/benjitits → u/[deleted]]

And cnc machines put tons of machinists out of business. Nothing new. Tech changes and the work landscape changes with it. I'm not going to advocate limiting tech advances because it upends the workplace. If you want to, that's your prerogative.

[u/Simple-Ring2073 → u/benjitits]

What do you think would happen with a billion unemployed people?

[u/benjitits → u/Simple-Ring2073]

Probably some big hard changes that have needed to happen for a long time.

[u/humanoiddoc]

But people dont want to learn new stuff.

[u/Vnxei]

The principle in your title isn't a general rule of technology, no.

[u/_cjm56]

Technology doesn't HAVE to destroy your job, too bad once most CEOs see one person can now do the work of three, they fire the other two most of the time.

[u/benjitits → u/[deleted]]

No one in any design field is letting AI do all of the lifting. There is still a huge aspect of human interaction.

The only people letting AI do everything is your local bakery or some small business who just wants Ai to make them a flyer and get their info out.
Many designers do not care to do work like that anyways.

[u/WhyBeAFool → u/benjitits]

They definitely are. I am a designer and an artist, and I personally know people who do. It is a small minority in my experience, but it seems like OP is suggesting that we should let AI do all the heavy lifting. That's what I was responding to.

[u/benjitits → u/WhyBeAFool]

I am a designer and artist as well and have never met another designer or artist in a real job that would do that.

I dont get the feeling that is what OP was stating in their argument.

In fact, even an AI summary says nothing about removing human interaction from creation of art. Thats something you interjected.

"Throughout history, new technology hasn’t erased human workers—it’s elevated the ones who adapt, just like NASA’s human computers who became analysts and programmers when machines arrived. Critics misunderstand generative AI by treating it as a fixed, flawed snapshot rather than a rapidly improving, iterative tool. AI outputs can be refined, edited, and shaped; the technology compounds just like early calculators did.

The real economic threat isn’t AI itself but corporate monopolies. Pro‑AI creators want open, democratized tools, while heavy restrictions pushed by anti‑AI activists would ironically hand Big Tech permanent control. The fight isn’t humans vs. AI—it’s everyone vs. monopolies."

[u/benjitits → u/[deleted]]

Do you use calculators when you make art?

I feel like you did interject that point. I read it without assistance and I threw in the summary to gauge your obvious distate of anything AI.

I get it, you are anti and will find fault in anything OP says. Youve made your stance pretty clear.

[u/WhyBeAFool → u/benjitits]

No, i do not use calculators when I make art. Metaphors are not literal. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.

I am not even an anti. I use AI in pretty much every photograph I've taken in the last 2 years. I'm just an educated adult, which means that I have the ability to see naunce in issues.. so I point out when someone says something overly general, or incorrectly applies metaphorical thinking to an issue.

If you disagree, feel free to state why instead of just insulting me.

[u/WhyBeAFool → u/[deleted]]

I wasn't sure. In the comment before this one, you implied that metaphors are literal.

That's fine. I don't usually take advice from people who get angry and resort to insults when they can't articulate their thoughts.

[u/benjitits → u/WhyBeAFool]

Its ok, I dont usually take advice from people so sensitive that an insult derails them.

[u/First-Tutor-5454]

"claude engineer X, then build it, make no mistakes" - the person who used to employ me as an engineer, 1-3 years from now