A chat with my neighbor's kid made me rethink the whole AI job thing

I was helping my neighbor, Mike, fix his fence in Denver last weekend. His 14-year-old son, Leo, was watching a coding tutorial on his phone. I joked that AI would write all the code soon, so why bother? Leo looked up and said, 'But then who fixes the fence?' He pointed out that his video was about making tools for gardeners, not replacing them. That simple question stuck with me. It made me see AI more as a helper for some jobs, not just a replacement for all of them. Has anyone else had a small moment that flipped their thinking on this?

4 comments

4 Comments

michaelgrant1mo ago

My nephew asked why we still have carpenters if 3D printers exist. That kid gets it.

beth2761h ago

Saw an article about this exact thing last week. It said kids don't see tech as a replacement for people, just a different kind of helper. They figure the 3D printer makes the boring parts so the carpenter can focus on the cool design stuff. That kind of thinking is probably why they'll invent jobs we can't even imagine yet. Adults get stuck worrying about the old jobs going away.

craig.alex1mo ago

Man, that's so true about kids seeing the tool. It's like we get stuck on the big scary word "AI" and forget it's just another power drill or calculator. My little cousin saw a robot vacuum and just said it meant we could play more, not that mom was out of a job.

reesej271mo ago

Ever notice how kids often see the tool, while adults just see the job getting done?