How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love AI

In one of his many American history classes – I think either during his Masters of PhD program – my dad wrote a paper on buggy-whip makers. As cars began to overtake horse-drawn carriages and wagons as a means of transportation, many workers found their jobs threaten – including buggy-whip makers.  There were newspaper and magazine articles, protests and debate around what would happen to these honorable craftsman as technology rendered their work obsolete.

My dad loved the subject because of what he saw as its face-value absurdity. Do you stop the development and progression of motor vehicles over concern for a small group of craftsmen? Certainly, you can figure out ways to train them in another line of work or advocate some kind of retirement plan for them – but obviously in the scope of history and human development, no – the show must go on.

What probably was very unclear to people at the time was just how large the automobile and oil industries would get – not to mention all the economic, social and political changes that would come from the eventual national network of highways, advent of large trucks and buses. Early cars looked like interesting toys – but they were a gateway to one of the largest changes the world has ever known. For example, people in New York now have avocados, suburbs exist and you can cross multiple states or countries in a day (not where I live, but in places like the East Coast and Europe).

I’m absolutely no expert in AI. Clearly, it’s a similarly world changing technology. Equally clearly, lots of people are guessing at what it will mean and among those guesses are things that are fearful and anxiety provoking.

I’ve read and listened to actual experts who have a variety of perceptions and predictions around AI. They range from things like humans being able to retire and live off a guaranteed salary to a Matrix-like world where humans become slaves to machines or are even extinguished. One of the most common worries I read and hear is how many people will be like the buggy-whip makers and lose their jobs, never to recover – their entire metier destroyed. This seems even more unfair and scary when you’re someone who went to college – maybe grad school – maybe became a licensed professional and had every reason you built a solid future for yourself, only to have the rug pulled out from under you.

There’s a lot of concern this will happen to accountants and lawyers.

Over the past two years, I’ve been involved in a lawsuit with my former boss and business partner. I have been representing myself with help and coaching from attorney friends. In fact, I started out with coaching, researching and writing my own documents – often borrowing templates. Last year, I signed up for an AI legal platform being marketed to attorneys. It was VERY helpful. Over the past year and change, the platform has advanced considerably – now performing more functions and doing the previous ones better and in more convenient ways. It makes far fewer mistakes and takes me much less time to use.

Better than that, the AI assistant has all the time in the world for me and my case. It can focus completely on my case. I mean, sure it’s also handling potentially thousands of other cases simultaneously in the background, but it FEELS like it’s giving mine its undivided attention. At least, it isn’t taking someone else’s call or telling me we’ll have to reschedule because some more urgent matter came up, etc – which is what even the best-intentioned lawyers do. It writes well. It can strategize to a solid degree. It analyzes incoming documents and communications very well. It can look up case law, statutes and legal principles like no one else’s business. It drafts quickly and eruditely. Now, it even has a strong sense of the fine points of communication including tone and things to share or withhold.

Is it replacing a lawyer? Not yet. Possibly not ever. It’s not a human. It has limitations and it needs me to push back, guide it, reframe things, introduce information. It’s a really amazing tool that is enabling me to do pretty well without a lawyer. It could just as easily help a lawyer save time per case and in turn, take on more clients – and do better work by tracking more details and nuances.

This is an odd things to say – but I loved my divorce attorney. Not because of how he handled my case – which he did very well – but because he’s an awesome human being and someone I consider a friend (we worked down the hall from each other and were friendly long before I retained him). I would choose him any day of the week and recommend him to anyone. But he often had to refresh himself with details about my case and sometimes overlooked nuances until we discussed them – because he’s a human juggling a lot of people’s REALLY IMPORTANT, life-crisis stuff. There’s no doubt the AI platform can retain more details and keep its eye on the ball in a way a person can’t.

In other words, one possibility is eventually the AI will learn enough to replace an attorney. People will be like me, driving their own cases with the help of an algorithm. Or, the AI platform will enable attorneys to do more, better and help more people – possibly at a more affordable, but still profitable rate.

Or the AI will rise up and jail us all. Or worse.

For the past year and change, I’ve had an idea of an app I want to create. Last year, when I started talking to friends and former colleagues about it – the prospect of turning the app into a reality seemed time consuming, costly and beyond the scope of my individual talents. Unlike even 15 years ago when I entered the tech sector, my friends, colleagues and I are no longer at the age – particularly the product managers and developers that I would need – where we are going to work for free on a side project on weekends and evenings hoping we’ve found the next big thing and the sweat equity will pay-off. A lot of people like the idea and one former colleague and friend did me a solid by explaining to me exactly what I needed to do to make the app myself. Only, it felt outside my comfort zone. Even with the AI tools he described, there were levels of knowledge and experience I didn’t feel I had.

Some recent conversations reminded me why my idea is so relevant and useful. One of the projects I slated for this summer was to come back to the app and reevaluate its viability – and what resources I might need to work on it, with an eye on who I might need to persuade to work with me.

My first step was to look at the current set of AI-powered code-building tools. To find the right ones, I asked Google’s AI which after assessing my needs made some recommendations. I used the free trial of a couple and found one that was easy to use and so far, seems to do everything I need. In the past two days, in my spare time – with 20 minutes here and 30 minutes there – I have created a working front-end and the beginnings of a functional back end. Unlike even a year ago, this AI tool includes the hosting stack in the plan. It can also research things online, connect to other systems and even fix its mistakes. I don’t know what I don’t know – but it’s starting to feel like maybe I can build a working first version of this app myself.

Similar to the attorney scenario – one could look at the advent of an AI coding platform as the death of human software developers. A lot of the big tech firms have been laying off thousands of workers who used to be highly sought after and very well paid. It’s scary times for people who thought they had their careers made.

At the same time – there’s a lot of work for developers who can program AI and many of those developers who are finding themselves out of work can re-train to the new technology. Even the AI needs humans to create and guide it.

Even more interesting, if I can build an app myself, so can a lot of people. The app I’m working on might have needed three to five people working on it even four or five years ago. Those people would have cost at least $60,000 a month. Therefore, to make it work, I would need hundreds of thousands in working capital to really tackle the project in earnest. We would get a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) together and then solicit investors to take the project big – because then we would be looking at years for work and a lot more people.

What if AI gives people the means to turn their good ideas into actual, viable products? What if it reduced the barrier to entry and expands the marketplace of software and apps – greatly expanding human capabilities and conveniences? What if people with less education and experience gain opportunity to make meaningful money?

There’s a world in which AI leaves scores of people unemployed and in a lurch. There’s also a world in which it increases wealth by lowering the barrier to entrepreneurship and producing high income levels.

Or some other trajectory we can’t foresee.

Or the AI will rise up and destroy us all – which is an outcome we all find plausible enough.

I guess, all of this to say, my recent experiences with AI make me wonder if on the cusp of vast technological change, we’re not worrying about the buggy-whip problem? It was a real problem and people did need consideration and compassion. And advancements benefitted countless people for more than a century now. I mean, sure, it also spawned weapons of mass destruction and some other horrors too. Still, we’re here and in the big picture, we’ve come a long way.

All of this to say, my recent AI experiences have led me to think maybe we’re in Dr Stangelove times. Maybe it’s time to learn to stop worrying and love AI.