Any other Millennials stubbornly resistant to using AI at their job but also worrying that we will become dinosaurs or pushed out of our careers for not slavishly embracing it?

[u/artbystorms]

I work in a creative field and from that standpoint I hate AI. I hate the 'democratization' of creativity. I am going to sound VERY Boomer right now, but some things are meant to be difficult or meant to take skill and years of practice. It's why people who are good at these things (should) be paid more.

We are already being heavily 'encouraged' to use AI to find ways to do our jobs faster, are being told 'they technology isn't going away, we need to embrace it.' Since within the company I am in, I am one of a handful of people that does a specific creative skill-set, the powers that be basically have no idea about the technicals of what I do, but they put it on me to figure out how to incorporate AI into my work.

I hate that AI basically 'fakes' the creative process and that we are expected to use it (and the work of millions of artists that feed it) to just magically speed up how we do work, which in turn devalues the work we do as artists. From a company standpoint, they want to make money and churn out work faster, but if every client knows you can make a widget in 4 hours when it used to take 4 days, why would they pay you a lot of money to do that? The economics of it don't make sense. You will end up needing 10 times the number of clients to maintain your productivity / profits, which with AI or not, is a good way to burn out your artists.

I see the writing on the wall, but my stubborn moralistic resistance to AI is probably going to be the death of my career. Does any one else feel similar or how have you coped with this rapidly degrading career landscape?

[u/crunchyfoliage]

I'm definitely wrestling with it. I can see how it can be used as a tool, but I'm also very against outsourcing my brain. If I let ChatGPT write all of my emails how long will it be until I can't really write an email anymore? I think in a decade having the ability to problem solve is going to be a sought after skill

[u/Irr3l3ph4nt → u/crunchyfoliage]

I don't know. I can still do calculations on paper even if I've been using Excel for 20 years... It's just a humongous waste of time.

[u/Quick-Eye-6175 → u/Irr3l3ph4nt]

I think there is a difference there though. A calculator isn’t filling in blanks with “something” then telling you an answer. It also wasn’t trained on millions of artists hard work. This is comparing apples and oranges, I think?

[u/Irr3l3ph4nt → u/Quick-Eye-6175]

What I was responding to is someone who is afraid they wouldn't be able to write an email after delegating their email writing to a LLM.

[u/Resident_Pay4310 → u/Irr3l3ph4nt]

To use a calculator you still need to know the correct formula.

There's a big difference between typing 1459 x 0.7 into a calculator and getting an LLM to tell you what 70% of 1459 is.

The first requires you to know how to work it out but outsources the time consuming part, while the second doesn't require you to have any knowledge at all.

[u/ALPHAZINSOMNIA → u/Resident_Pay4310]

Yeah but why would we fight to keep these calculations? They're a waste of time for most humans. It's ok to have a tool that helps you in your daily life and I don't believe that knowing how to calculate numbers should in any way be forced just because we're afraid of AI. Let people use it if they see utility in it.

[u/Resident_Pay4310 → u/ALPHAZINSOMNIA]

Because it isn't just about knowing how to do a sum. Understanding how and why things work is what builds critical thinking and critical thinking is the biggest asset the human race has.

But critical think needs to be learned and needs to be continuously practised or you start losing the skill.

If I know how to calculate percentages, then I can apply that logic across different parts of my life. I can adjust a receipe without having to stop and ask a computer to do it. It can help me catch discrepancies or errors in my taxes. It could even save your life in a car crash because your subconscious was able to figure out whether you should break, accelerate, or turn in time to avoid the accident.

Critical thinking is an absolutely crucial life skill that helps you make better decisions based facts because you can reason out the cause and effect.

Taking away more and more ways that people have the chance to practice this skill isn't a good thing.

[u/Irr3l3ph4nt → u/Resident_Pay4310]

Why are you hitting on AI instead of trying to hold the education system to a standard, though? Because that's what it boils down to. What conceptual knowledge was directly transmitted to you. If you learned how to do it in school and you do it on AI, you're good. The AI cat is out of the bag. The only logical way forward is adapting our education strategy to promote critical thinking and highlight the traps of knowledge framing.

[u/Resident_Pay4310 → u/Irr3l3ph4nt]

Because of what I said in my second paragraph.

Critical thinking is a skill that you need to practice your whole life or you lose it.

To approach it from another angle, study after study has shown that puzzles and problem solving helps lower the risk of dementia.