I have read too many texts where people use Luddites as the perfect parallel for today’s AI fear.
It started around 1811 in England. Workers were scared of textille machines replacing them so they broke the machines, and the state response was not a Linked in post. Machine breaking became a crime punishable by death, and executions happened.
And honestly, I don’t blame those workers. I understand them. Back then you could not just go and learn new skill. You were born into a job. You do it. Or you don’t eat. No internet. No courses. No career pivot. Just survival. So yes, they broke machines. It did not help.
Now we have AI. And we have the same fear, just with better branding and nicer PowerPoint.
Some people fight it with denial. Others with technically correct lines like AI cannot code alone, or AI cannot do my job. Sure. Today. A few years ago AI could make a funny image, a piece of code, and an analysis that sometimes looks smart, sometimes looks drunk. Today it is much better. And it is obvious where this goes in 3 or 4 years.
So yes, AI will replace many things people do. But it will replace tasks. Not humans.
If you see yourself as a task, you will be replaced. If your value is “I do this one thing again and again”, then you are competing with software. Good luck with that.
And I am not writing this from theory. I was on the machine side.
As a product manager, I was part of many “digitalization of customer experience” projects. Some of them were great. Some of them were great only if you are not the person losing the job.
I had the chance to lead a Scan to pay project where paying bills by scanning a QR code became real, and I was the first person in Serbia paying the bill with my mobile app just by scanning QR code. This was years before Serbia introduced IPS. People loved it. Of course they loved it. Nobody loves standing in line.
Another big project was cash deposit at ATMs for business clients. That was a serious win for the bank. And honestly, I was proud. Around 40% of teller work was exactly that. Cash deposits from legal entities.
It was not only boring work. It created queues in branches because business clients were waiting in the same line as retail customers. And business people had to come during working hours, because banks are very flexible like that, they work when you work.
When we launched this option, a business client could deposit cash on Sunday. Any time, actually. Money goes to the account immediately. No queue. No “come tomorrow”. Great user experience. Everybody happy.
Then we had a meeting.
A colleague asked for this type of ATM for one branch.
- “Ok,” I said, “it is not budgeted, but maybe we can do it in rebudgeting.”
- “How much is it?” he asked.
- “500 EUR per month,” I said.
- “Only that?” he said. “Ok, then let’s replace one teller.”
That sentence stayed with me. My first thought was not about strategy or ROI. My first thought was: Do I know that person who will be replaced?
For 500 EUR per month, the ATM works 24/7. No vacation. No sick leave. No emotions. No salary increase talks (the only danger was if the electricity price goes up, and it does that often in Serbia). Machine just does the job. And yes, you feel a bitter taste in your mouth, even if you are the guy building the “great product”.
Later I had a conversation with a friend. She is a designer. She told me AI should be banned for the work she does, because “it is not art”. I gave her examples. QR bill payments. Smart ATMs. Luddites… She did not like that comparison. Of course she did not. As humans, we accept technology easily when it makes our life easier. Until it touches our own job. Then suddenly we become philosophers and defenders of humanity.
And I don’t remember many people going to the streets to defend bank tellers from ATMs. Not really.
The big difference now is that AI is not only coming for blue collars. Now it is also white collars. People who were safe until now. People who always believed they are creative or knowledge workers, so machines cannot touch them. Well. Welcome to the party.
But, AI will replace tasks. A lot of tasks. Probably many tasks you do every day. And this is the part people hate. Not the technology. The math.
If your job is mostly copying, pasting, summarizing, translating, searching, formatting, writing the first draft, answering the same questions, doing analysis, making some designs, doing some code, then you are a bunch of tasks. And task bunches are exactly what AI is eating for breakfast.
Some people still say: “AI cannot do my job.” Yes. Like the ATM could not do “banking”, until it could, until deposits were 40% of the teller day. Funny how that works.
But you are not your job. You are not your tasks. You are a person.
So the real question is simple: Are you paid because you execute tasks, or because you take responsibility? Because AI is good at clean tasks. It is not good at messy reality. Yet.
And this is why I do not like the fake comfort lines: “Don’t worry, AI will create new jobs.” Yes it will. But it will not create your current job. It will create a new job. Somewhere else. With different skills.
Also, this is not a war between humans and machines. This is a war between your ego and your calendar. You can either spend the next two years explaining why you are special, or spend the next two years becoming actually hard to replace.
Smashing the machine did not work in 1811. It will not work now.
One more thing. People love to quote Darwin here: “not the strongest, not the smartest, but the most adaptable survives.” Darwin probably did not say it like that, but the message is still brutal and correct.
Adapt.
Featured image source: Mary Evans Picture Library/Tom Morgan/Everett