HACKER Q&A
📣 bg117

Is this the worst time to be human?


With AI doing much of the work, how do we humans keep life interesting? Ex:- 1.Generate much of the code and remove the joy of developers that they had over all these years. 2. Generate Animation videos/movies or Anime books. People who make a living by drawing because they like it will feel all the more miserable. 3. May be more scenarios can be listed

If you are into a particular profession because you like it and get paid in addition, you have every reason to be miserable/ depressed.

what are your thoughts? 1. Is this the beginning of golden age for people who does not have any good skill but just mediocre who will make a killing by using AI tools and drive away people who are into a certain profession because of passion? 2. Are creative people doomed? 3. What options are available ? 4. Looks like greed is causing miserable lives for everyone. 5. Perhaps passionate people will continue to do things the "old way" but cannot make a living or compete with AI folks. For ex:- drawing animation by hand will become less economical compared with AI generated unless you are faster than a speeding bullet?

Please share your thoughts. Thanks

  👤 discordance Accepted Answer ✓
Worth a watch:

Don't Take the Black Pill - Andrew Kelley | SSW 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLZwpH5lCD4

👤 jjgreen
Looks like greed is causing miserable lives for everyone

True, but not exactly a new thing

👤 toomuchtodo
Everyone's experience will be different, make the best of it. Life is mostly luck, but you have some choices sometimes, control what you can to the best of your ability.
👤 AnimalMuppet
No. No, no, no. This isn't just after a volcanic eruption, where we're facing starvation because crops won't grow, and there's plague that we're too weak from hunger to fight off. This isn't the bubonic plague, where one-third of people in Europe died. This isn't 1913, where we were about to go through WWI, and then the Great Depression, and then WWII. This is "we don't know what jobs are going to look like in five years, and we're experiencing high levels of job dissatisfaction". This is nothing like real hard times.

How is it all going to play out? I have no idea. Career advice? Stay flexible and willing to learn, but I can't give any concrete advice.

👤 sejje
This is easily the best time there's ever been to be a human. And while I think many creatures' existence is pleasant, I would never trade the human experience for another.

I think the world is what you make it, in Western countries (standard caveats like disabilities). I empathize with misery experienced in other places, but it has nothing to do with AI. It has to do with humans, bad decisions, power monopolies.

Anyone miserable in America is choosing it, or very unlucky.

👤 underdeserver
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49285770

It's the best time.

👤 spottedmarley
No matter the time or place, being human is pretty much as good as it gets. Would you rather be a horse? or an ostrich?
👤 MotoriX
I don’t know, I think it’s not that black and white. People who genuinely live for their work will probably keep coding because they enjoy it, but if they need to use AI to be more productive, they’ll have to adopt it. After all, people invented the wheel because they were lazy and wanted to make things easier and more profitable. I think AI is just another wheel...