"What Use Are Humans in the AI Era?" When AI can do everything, what use are humans?
AI is shifting from assisting to doing—writing, coding, making videos—making knowledge, skills and labor cheap at once. What's threatened first isn't a profession but our very understanding of value. As "what I can do" matters less, what counts is why we do it, what we choose, what we believe, and who takes responsibility. The AI era forces us to relocate human value.
If AI can do everything, what use are humans?
Lately, this question has become harder and harder to think about in detail.
Because you will notice that something rather frightening is happening:
Official account articles – AI is writing them;
News and information – AI is compiling them;
Short videos – AI is shooting them;
Software code – AI is writing it;
Contracts and legal documents – AI is drafting them;
Even films, TV dramas, and music are being generated by AI in bulk.
In the past, we said AI would "assist humans."
But now, AI is moving from "helping you do it" to "doing it for you."
So the question arises:
If one day the vast majority of work in the digital world can be handed over to AI –
what use are humans, really?
You might say:
"Then I can do more creative work."
But the problem is, AI is becoming increasingly good at creating too.
You might also say:
"Then I can learn more knowledge."
But AI may possess more knowledge than any single person.
You could also say:
"I have experience."
But AI is turning more and more people's experience into capabilities within models.
01What We Should Truly Worry About Is a Bigger Change
So what we should truly worry about may not be:
whether AI will replace programmers, designers, copywriters, or lawyers.
But rather a bigger change:
In the past, humans created value in the digital world through "knowledge, skills, and labour."And AI is making all three cheaper at the same time.
What does this mean?
It means what disappears first in the future may not be a particular profession.
But rather our past understanding of "value."
Previously, if a person could write code, they had value;
could write articles, they had value;
could make PowerPoint slides, they had value;
could analyse data, they had value.
But when AI can complete these things in seconds:
"What I can do" may become less and less valuable.
02What Truly Becomes Valuable May Be Something Else
What truly becomes valuable may be something else:
Why do I do it?What do I decide to do?What do I believe in?When something goes wrong, who takes responsibility?
And there is an even more fundamental question:
What things are worth creating at all?
This may be the question humanity truly needs to rethink in the AI era.
03The One Thing This Series Wants to Discuss Seriously
So this series wants to seriously discuss one thing with everyone:
When AI begins to take over production in the digital world, where should humanity place its value?
In the next episode, we will first discuss a possibly crueller question:
What AI truly aims to eliminate may not be a particular profession at all, but "labour" itself.