AI resistance is very strong in tech and is simply going to sideline a lot of people. I just created a lens calibration tool for 10 seconds, work that I'd normally outsource to a junior for a day or do it myself for an hour or two "But how did you do it so quickly?". Well, since I know perfectly well how you're going to react, I'm simply not going to tell you. Why is it that sidelined people always think that their opinions about being sidelined matters? This new calculus thing? Yeah, it's never going to catch on, I'm just going to triangulate everything and apply Pythagoras to every single triangle, because that's what real mathematicians do!
AI has already replaced typists and scribes in medicine. Most doctors used to dictate their notes. Now they use transcription software and then edit that: it is faster, more precise, and is much better than the (partial) computerisation that happened before where you were expected to type your own notes -- the typists continued to exist because dictation at 120 -- 180 wpm beats typing and 10 --50 wpm.
"...if a human artist would master the use of AI to speed up his normal processes and utilise his artistic skills to improve the AI product, his value to the production process would increase considerably and he could get paid more for his work than he does for the time he presently puts into a single design."
I had this kind of experience earlier this year. Publisher made a mockup of a cover design using AI which looked great at first glance, to the point where I wondered why the author wanted to change it. A little examination made the AI problems obvious, the first issue being that it didn't remotely fit the parameters for foil stamping. With that starting point, though, I was able to come up with a design that made the author happy in a relatively short amount of time. Leaned heavily on AI-generated reference images as basis for the final design. I probably could have come up with it without those, but it would have taken far longer and been a lot more frustrating. The end result is still mine, but AI helped streamline the process.
Our tech artist has leaned heavily into AI generation.
He will generate an image, feed that into another program to generate a 3D model, and then finally into another program to texture. He then cleans up the results (most for performance). He estimates it's 30 minutes from start to finish for a new prop in game. A few years ago this would have been days of work, especially for an intern/junior artist doing it by hand.
They are great tools. Fail to learn them at your own peril.
There’s a layer to this problem that goes beyond cost or efficiency. I’ve witnessed offshore title operations in Manila refuse explicit directives from their U.S. parent company—not delay, not misunderstand, but refuse.
So while we’ve focused on whether AI will replace outsourced labor, we’ve ignored that a good portion of that labor already operates beyond effective domestic control. We’re not just sending data overseas—we’ve handed over day-to-day operational custody of the American real estate system to third parties in the Philippines, India, and elsewhere.
That includes property ownership records, wire instructions, mortgage details, and SSN-derived identifiers—all routinely processed outside the United States.
The national security risk isn’t speculative. It’s embedded. If a Manila-based team decides not to comply with a policy update or mishandles a transaction, there’s no meaningful recourse. The chain of command has already fractured.
AI might eventually take those jobs, but at least AI won’t tell corporate that it will not follow instructions.
We didn’t just offshore the grunt work. We offshored the leverage.
I started working with LLMs as soon as it was more than a toy, so was never resistent to it, but the management brain-space is rotten with bad ideas about AI, and the ones I had to deal with were zealots.
I am hoping taking some time away from the tech sector for a while, they will have returned to just being regular managers again, with a different toolset that doesn't include completely unrealistic expectations and feverish lectures.
AI resistance is very strong in tech and is simply going to sideline a lot of people. I just created a lens calibration tool for 10 seconds, work that I'd normally outsource to a junior for a day or do it myself for an hour or two "But how did you do it so quickly?". Well, since I know perfectly well how you're going to react, I'm simply not going to tell you. Why is it that sidelined people always think that their opinions about being sidelined matters? This new calculus thing? Yeah, it's never going to catch on, I'm just going to triangulate everything and apply Pythagoras to every single triangle, because that's what real mathematicians do!
Im coming around to AI distopia, at least it's not personal beef. Objective disreguard for my rights may be better than subjective disreguard.
"I draw all my straight lines by hand.
That ruler takes away the soul of the line.
Don't get me started on compass drawn circles..."
I'm learning everything I can about utilizing AI where it affects me the most for work.
Once I have some free time, Suno is next on my bucket list.
AI has already replaced typists and scribes in medicine. Most doctors used to dictate their notes. Now they use transcription software and then edit that: it is faster, more precise, and is much better than the (partial) computerisation that happened before where you were expected to type your own notes -- the typists continued to exist because dictation at 120 -- 180 wpm beats typing and 10 --50 wpm.
"...if a human artist would master the use of AI to speed up his normal processes and utilise his artistic skills to improve the AI product, his value to the production process would increase considerably and he could get paid more for his work than he does for the time he presently puts into a single design."
I had this kind of experience earlier this year. Publisher made a mockup of a cover design using AI which looked great at first glance, to the point where I wondered why the author wanted to change it. A little examination made the AI problems obvious, the first issue being that it didn't remotely fit the parameters for foil stamping. With that starting point, though, I was able to come up with a design that made the author happy in a relatively short amount of time. Leaned heavily on AI-generated reference images as basis for the final design. I probably could have come up with it without those, but it would have taken far longer and been a lot more frustrating. The end result is still mine, but AI helped streamline the process.
Our tech artist has leaned heavily into AI generation.
He will generate an image, feed that into another program to generate a 3D model, and then finally into another program to texture. He then cleans up the results (most for performance). He estimates it's 30 minutes from start to finish for a new prop in game. A few years ago this would have been days of work, especially for an intern/junior artist doing it by hand.
They are great tools. Fail to learn them at your own peril.
There’s a layer to this problem that goes beyond cost or efficiency. I’ve witnessed offshore title operations in Manila refuse explicit directives from their U.S. parent company—not delay, not misunderstand, but refuse.
So while we’ve focused on whether AI will replace outsourced labor, we’ve ignored that a good portion of that labor already operates beyond effective domestic control. We’re not just sending data overseas—we’ve handed over day-to-day operational custody of the American real estate system to third parties in the Philippines, India, and elsewhere.
That includes property ownership records, wire instructions, mortgage details, and SSN-derived identifiers—all routinely processed outside the United States.
The national security risk isn’t speculative. It’s embedded. If a Manila-based team decides not to comply with a policy update or mishandles a transaction, there’s no meaningful recourse. The chain of command has already fractured.
AI might eventually take those jobs, but at least AI won’t tell corporate that it will not follow instructions.
We didn’t just offshore the grunt work. We offshored the leverage.
I started working with LLMs as soon as it was more than a toy, so was never resistent to it, but the management brain-space is rotten with bad ideas about AI, and the ones I had to deal with were zealots.
I am hoping taking some time away from the tech sector for a while, they will have returned to just being regular managers again, with a different toolset that doesn't include completely unrealistic expectations and feverish lectures.
as my friend in IT says "the great De-nuk-ing" is underway . Nuk is what we call a Jeet.
DeNuk-away! Finally