Three observations about A.I.

(as an obsolete human writer & software engineer)

Photo credit to Lukas

Slightly more than a month ago, Sam Altman published a blog post, Three Observations, sharing his insights on A.I. development and some forecasts about the trends — of course, from the perspective of someone directly driving it. (By the way, it’s also one of my favorite reads this year so far.)

However, I'm not an A.I. developer.

I'm just an iOS engineer who might soon be replaced by A.I., who also loves writing in his free time—two skills that seem rather insignificant in the face of powerful A.I., in the near future.

But I’m actually somewhat excited about that future, and here are my three observations:

#1 Writing has never been this impactful.

I've always enjoyed writing, though for most of my life, it was merely entertainment or a way to express myself.

From cringe-worthy novels I wrote as a teenager, and the travel blogs in college, to the fantasy and sci-fi stories I’m writing in the past year or two—none of these brought much tangible benefit or meaning.

I wrote simply because I enjoyed doing it.

(And it helps me clarify my thinking. Sometimes, writing feels like meditating to me.)

But since LLM became widely available, and especially since I started coding with Cursor, writing has taken on a tangible, almost physical power — Writing suddenly feels like a programming language.

Words become images. Or videos. Or even an entire app, if you want.

Some of these experiences genuinely feel like magic—akin to Harry Potter casting a spell and immediately seeing the results in his world.

Everything—literally everything—I once dreamed of creating but couldn't due to the lack of skills, has now become possible, through writing and describing them clearly.

Soon enough, I'll just need to ask myself: "What do I truly want to create?" And ChatGPT, Cursor, ComfyUI, Vercel/V0, along with the tools yet to be invented, will increasingly make it possible.

When skillsets and feasibility are no longer the bottleneck, the ability to navigate — to think clearly about questions like who I am, what I want, and where I’m going becomes more important than ever.

Agency, willfulness, and determination will likely be extremely valuable. Correctly deciding what to do and figuring out how to navigate an ever-changing world will have huge value; resilience and adaptability will be helpful skills to cultivate. AGI will be the biggest lever ever on human willfulness, and enable individual people to have more impact than ever before, not less. — Sam Altman in Three Observations.

#2 Disappearing jobs?

Yet, precisely because skills are becoming cheaper (especially mine), I was also somewhat concerned about being obsolete.

In fact, Sam Altman specifically mentioned the example of software engineering agents in his blog:

Let’s imagine the case of a software engineering agent, which is an agent that we expect to be particularly important. Imagine that this agent will eventually be capable of doing most things a software engineer at a top company with a few years of experience could do, for tasks up to a couple of days long.

But thinking it through, I comforted myself by recalling the Industrial Revolution.

My ancestors—farmers, I think—probably felt a similar anxiety. Yet here I am, comfortably lounging on the sofa, watching Netflix over the weekend. They couldn’t have imagined this kind of comfort—hot water flowing instantly from a faucet, allowing me 30 minutes of unbothered resting in the bathtub.

Also, from another even more optimistic angle that I’ve been thinking a lot about — I chose to write code for a company because I wanted to create cool things I couldn't have built alone, or couldn’t have reached the economic scale to make the code impactful.

But in a future filled with advanced LLMs, powerful A.I. agents, and even more sophisticated tools that don’t exist yet, will I still need a company to offer me interesting and fulfilling opportunities?

I’m not sure about that to this date.

But I do wonder: Is it human labor that's at risk, or is it our dependency on companies that's truly dissolving?

#3 Be a good person.

Besides writing, I believe our "names," or identities as humans, are becoming more crucial than ever as well — because this is something AI simply cannot replace.

Ten years after AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, we still watch human matches, and not AlphaGo versus BetaGo.

After seeing a Van Gogh painting, I’m intrigued by his life story.

After reading Brandon Sanderson’s "Yumi and the Nightmare Painter," I’m curious about how he came up with such a compelling narrative (turns out it has a lot to do with two of my favorite stories, "Your Name" and "Final Fantasy X"!).

Assuming bookstores still exist, I'd bet that even ten years from now, most of the top ten bestsellers will still be authored by human creators.

Because we respect and remain curious about each other.

Because we're moved by each other's experiences, strive to become one another, and, sometimes, envy each other's accomplishments, pushing ourselves to work harder.

We also argue with each other.

I guess, this makes writing even more important.

Putting names, ideas, and stories out there provides opportunities for others to get to know you, and vice versa.

Finally, I want to remind myself to be a good person.

After all, the trust between humans—that shiny little thing A.I. cannot replicate—is something that will stay with me for a lifetime.