The AI Crossroads

Dylan Lee

When the day comes that AI can produce results that are “good enough” in any given field, those working in that field find themselves at the AI Crossroads.  There’s no sugar-coating it, they face an uncertain future for conventional work in their domain.

For many, this will be an existential crisis.  It's confronting, but reckoning with the new AI reality is unavoidable.  Taking comfort in observations that "AI output is clearly inferior" miss the point, and will not reassure for long. The mantra applies: AI doesn’t have to be better at your job to take your job.  When customers can suddenly choose between conventional services and free AI output, livelihoods are on the line.

The good news is that it's simple, only two paths need consideration:

  1. Maintain your conventional offering in the world of AI (beat them)
    You can ride out AI's arrival.  Make no mistake, the industry will be squeezed, perhaps to a fraction of its former size.  You might be one of the few strong players that weather the storm.  You might be lucky enough to exist in a niche that somehow evades AI's reach.  You might be in the 1% that can just beat AI output hands down.  There will always be a market for hand-crafted furniture in the world of flat-packed globalised drop shipping.  Or you might just keep doing what you do for the love of it, as revenue streams evaporate.

  2. Redefine your capability with AI tools (join them)
    Embrace the technology as an “AI Producer” (insert industry-specific term). You'll leverage AI tools to produce exceptional work in this new paradigm.  Use AI a little or a lot.  Learn, ideate, implement, pivot. Produce work with volume, quality, speed, or novelty that can’t be matched by conventional means.  Augment your offerings.  Add value by pairing your conventional competencies with AIs production scale - a potent combination for forward-thinkers.  The prolific musician armed with Suno?  The compelling storyteller armed with Sora?  The seasoned journalist armed with GPT?  The new graduate armed with AI everything?

Make no mistake. Customers have a choice between you an a zero-cost alternative.  New entrants in your field are fiercely wielding AI as your competitor. And you got me, there's always that third option: do nothing.  Good luck with that.

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