About five thousand years ago, a sunburned and exhausted Egyptian farmer got sick of hauling buckets of water all day to keep his crops alive. So, one day he stood up in the village square, looked his people dead in the eye, and said, “Folks, what if we built something that moved the water for us?” You can imagine how foolish that must have sounded. People probably laughed, thinking it was fermented figs that gave him the guts. But out of that hogwash came the shadoof – a simple irrigation machine that revolutionized agriculture.
From our hunter-gatherer ancestors to the moon-walking generation, humans have always had one thing in common. We really hate hard work. It’s this instinct that gave us tools, machines, and now the luxury of asking Siri what 1+1 is. You see, it’s not a hatred of labour, but a persistent desire to do things better or easier. Let’s call it efficient laziness. Seriously, fans used to be people. Actual human beings were hired to wave palm fronds at rich folks so they wouldn’t melt in the heat. What a job.
Okay, Stan, we hear you. But what’s the point of all this mumbo jumbo about shadoofs and human fans you’re going on about?
Breathe it in my friend. Now that I have your attention, welcome to Artificial Intelligence, the new wave of technology we all fondly call AI.
I know there’s a bunch of “intelligent” people out there who still think AI is just ChatGPT. Sorry to break it to you, AI is bigger than that. Right before ChatGPT started writing your cover letters, AI was quietly running your life in the background. It filtered your spam, directed you to wrong destinations and tricked you into binge-watching Money Heist at 2 a.m. like your life depends on it.
AI didn’t just show up overnight like wilted flowers on Valentine’s Day. It evolved slowly just like how the first Industrial Revolution did. It didn’t start with giant factories, but rather a bunch of weird-looking machines in someone’s shed.
In those days, machines took over physical labour. Now, AI is doing cognitive stuff like decision-making, language, and reasoning so we can sit down, floss our teeth, and complain about Monday. It’s been crunching data behind the scenes in finance, business, aviation, and pretty much everything we do.
Now, here’s the problem. Everyone’s freaking out that AI is coming like Thanos to snap their jobs into oblivion. And honestly, it makes a lot of sense. Machines are getting really good at doing the stuff we used to pat ourselves on the back for. Just as steam engines and mechanical looms reshaped labour and society in the 18th and 19th centuries, similar fears broke people’s bones back then.
The beauty of it though… the world didn’t end. Yes, people lost their jobs, but they ultimately adapted and that’s the challenge we’re staring at now with AI.
But look, AI is not a problem. Despite all the dystopian headlines and fear-mongering, AI is, in fact, the next giant leap, a complete shift in the story of human civilization. Maybe it’s as huge to us as fire was to our forefathers, a pivot point in the long tale of Homo sapiens.
So, instead of crying like toddlers about AI stealing our jobs, we should pull ourselves together and prepare for the new normal. We like to think we’re special. Sadly, most of the jobs we currently brag about on LinkedIn, will soon be done by machines, better and faster. However, creativity and solving complex problems will remain indispensable human skills.
AI’s not here to take over the world but to work with us, helping us do things faster and smarter. It’s more like a supercharged assistant taking care of all the boring stuff we’re too lazy to do. Rejecting AI is like clinging to that old “real men use three pedals” gospel while the rest of the world glides smoothly in automatic cars.
Ready or not, the AI revolution has come, and it’s challenging our assumptions about intelligence, values, and human uniqueness. The question isn’t whether AI will replace us. It’s how we’ll adapt, re-skill, and re-imagine our roles in the age of machines.
