On being left behind

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Hellooo Reader, Suraj here –

Yesterday, my brother sent me an article that got me thinking very hard about my career choices.

The article is about the pace at which AI is advancing, and how it is going to affect every single industry sooner than we think. Thankfully, towards the end, it also has a section on how to prepare for that future.

I highly recommend reading the article yourself.

After starting university, it was super tempting to use AI in school, from completing assignments to summarizing readings. I somehow kept myself from doing so because I truly wanted to acquire skills and not skip the process of learning. That was very reasonable, I think.

I also recognized that AI was going to replace a lot of white-collar jobs at some point, so I was also focusing on skills other than just technical.

But the time we are in right now is a gray area. Currently, we can neither fully avoid AI nor can AI do everything perfectly.

This is the right-in-between.

The gold rush.

There will be winners and losers; unfortunately, too many of the latter.

Winners will be those who have learned to leverage AI. This is what I was not recognizing.

There are so many things I want to build—a note full of ideas. The only reason I haven’t built them all yet is that I don’t have the required skills yet. I’m learning, but my pace is not as fast.

What I’ve come to realize is that waiting to properly learn those skills may not be a good idea. It is time to build things and understand simultaneously.

Definitely not to accept all the code generated by AI without understanding what’s going on, but to make good use of the tools I have at my disposal.

If elevators have been invented, I shouldn’t always use the stairs. Yes, the stairs are a good exercise, and they will get me upstairs. But when there is a reward in being among the first to climb, I shouldn’t disregard the elevator.

This is not to fully ignore my fitness by always taking the elevator, but perhaps to do both, as needed. To find balance.

The goal now is to utilize the tools at my disposal as well as I can.

Not to let it skip my learning, but to use it thoroughly.

If you haven’t already, please consider reading the article that sparked this realization.

I’ll see you next week.

Warmly,
Suraj

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