There is far more risk in staying out through passivity and comfort than in becoming useless.

When I hear that AI will replace professionals, end jobs, and make developers unnecessary, I wonder how much fear can fit into a sentence that claims to explain the whole future. Some tasks will be automated. Some roles will change a great deal. Denying that would be naive. But declaring people useless is something else.

If we got this far without AI, imagine what we could do by expanding what we are already capable of delivering.

That is where many discussions lack depth. If we never use AI or try to understand it, we become more likely to believe everything we hear: the promise that it will solve any problem and the headline announcing the end of every profession.

AI knows more than we do. So what?

It can search and process information at a scale no person can match. But books also contain more knowledge than any one of us. We never stopped studying because a library knew more.

Of course, the comparison has limits. A book does not talk, write code, or receive permission to act in our systems. AI can do all of that, make confident mistakes, and repeat them quickly. That is exactly why we need to learn how to use it, set boundaries, and review its work.

Fear can make us careful. Standing still does not.

You do not need to hand AI the wheel to discover how it can help you drive better.

Start small. Try it on a task you know well. Ask for a different view of an idea, a first outline for a piece of writing, or options for a technical problem. Compare the result with your own work. Challenge it. Improve it. That is how a tool stops being a headline and becomes something you understand.

What Sundar Pichai said

On June 5, 2025, on Lex Fridman's podcast, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, answered a question about programmers who feared losing their jobs. He said Google's internal estimate showed a 10% increase in engineering velocity from AI. In the same answer, he said Google planned to hire more engineers the following year because the range of opportunities was growing too. Watch the original answer from 1:31:16.

The figure is the company's own estimate. Hiring was a plan stated at the time, not a guarantee about the future of work. Yet Pichai's answer raises a question for every leader.

The familiar “do more with less” line can mean:

“With AI, I can cut my team and keep delivering the same thing.”

But there is a more interesting question:

“With AI, what can my team now create, improve, or solve that used to be out of reach?”

One looks for replacement. The other looks for greater capacity.

I am not saying no company will cut jobs. Some will. Nor am I saying technology automatically creates more work. It does not. I am saying that cutting costs should not be the only idea a leader has when a team gains capacity.

If AI frees time from repetitive work, we can use it to test an idea, improve a product, serve someone better, or tackle a problem that was always postponed. What happens depends on human choices, real demand, and how an organization shares the gains.

The risk of standing still

In an earlier article about our fear of AI, I argued that technology does not decide by itself what we want to build. Risks can arise from system design, incentives, and the way people use a tool. Our responsibility does not disappear as the tool grows more powerful.

It also does not disappear when we choose to do nothing.

In a world that keeps moving, standing still does not preserve our position. It only removes us from the conversation about what comes next.

If you have not started, start:

  • Study enough to separate real capabilities from marketing.
  • Experiment with tasks and data you are allowed to use safely.
  • Question the output before trusting or sharing it.
  • Train your team and make room to share what people learn.
  • Raise your ambition: ask what you can now do better, not only what you can cut.

This is not a race to press more buttons. It is a decision to keep learning while the future is still uncertain.

Stop fearing AI as if it alone will choose your place. Start using it, learn its limits, and take part in deciding what to do with this new capacity.

Think about it.

Original source