A software engineer is currently living in a trailer and getting by with small part-time jobs. He has been unemployed for a year and can no longer find a job as he is constantly rejected. He lost his last job to AI, but he has come to appreciate AI.
A former software engineer now lives in a trailer and is getting by with odd jobs. In a conversation with Fortune, he explained that he lost his job twice: first after the financial crisis in 2008 and again after the COVID-19 pandemic. But each time, he managed to bounce back.
In April 2024, he received his third termination. At that time, he was working for a company specialized in the metaverse: The revolution of the tech industry through AI was happening right before his eyes.
He currently lives in a trailer and survives on small jobs
What is his current situation? At the time of the conversation, he lives in a small trailer in the center of New York without prospects of finding a new job in the tech field and has had to turn to creative strategies to make ends meet. This includes selling household items on eBay and delivering food for a provider. Overall, he only earns a few hundred US dollars from this.
He has also considered going back to school to obtain a technical certificate or even getting his CDL license for trucks. The problem, however, is the high financial barrier that he cannot overcome.
No resentment towards AI, but it is frustrating to see companies cut jobs because of AI
What is his relationship with artificial intelligence? Although AI pushed him out of his last job, he holds no resentment towards artificial intelligence. Yet, he adds, it is frustrating to see how companies use AI to cut costs and thereby replace valuable employees. He explained:
If AI can really do a better job than I can, I won’t sit here feeling bad because it replaced me and doesn’t have the human touch. (…)
I believe there’s a problem where people are stuck in the old way of thinking: If I can do the same work that 10 developers do with one developer, then we should just downsize the developer team instead of saying: Oh, we have a team of 10 developers, we should be doing a thousand times the work we did before.
And although there have been fears for years that AI could replace jobs, the 42-year-old believes that his experience is only the beginning of a “flood of social and economic disasters” and that many more people could follow.
Are there secure jobs? The head of ChatGPT explained in an interview which professions a machine can’t replace. In total, he thought of 34 jobs that are safe from artificial intelligence. In addition to bus drivers and hairdressers, there are some other lesser-known jobs: The inventor of the AI ChatGPT reveals which 34 professions AI can never replace
