A Future Worth Picturing, At Least Once | AI Survival Diary #35
The story of falling birth rates has been around for a very long time.
Back then, it was just: "our country's kids keep decreasing." That was about it.
But recently, I heard something about an elementary school in my own neighborhood, and it caught me off guard.
It's in an area full of apartment complexes, with plenty of people living around it — and yet the entire school has 64 students, total.
Hearing that number, the phrase "low birth rate" landed differently.
Something that was a story in the news had, at some point, quietly become the reality around me.
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The idea that AI will replace human work is something I've been hearing for years now, too.
I see the news, and think:
"Wow, AI has gotten this far."
"A lot of jobs might really disappear because of this."
I think about it, briefly.
And the next day, I go back to my own work as if nothing happened.
I do that too.
But watching how fast AI keeps advancing, I felt like, just once, I should picture that reality concretely.
If a time really comes when AI replaces human work, how much time is actually left before that?
And when it comes, how will I — how will people — actually live?
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In 1999, Ray Kurzweil predicted that computers would reach human-level intelligence by 2029.
And he places the technological singularity around 2045.
The singularity always felt like too distant a future to take seriously, so I just read past it.
But watching AI keep getting upgraded, version after version, lately —
"By 2029, computers will reach human-level intelligence."
That line doesn't feel like some far-off future anymore.
There are only three years left until 2029.
Of course, I don't know if that prediction will turn out to be exactly right.
But there's one thing worth sitting with.
"If AI really starts replacing human work, what do I actually live on?"
Like the falling birth rate, this felt like something that could become my own reality someday.
So I started looking into what AI can actually do right now.
And I thought about what effect that would have on the work I do.
Would it replace me? Or do I still have a bit more time?
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So I asked AI itself.
What AI can currently do, and the jobs that could be affected
| What AI is good at | Current use cases | Work likely to be affected |
| Writing / summarizing | Reports, emails, blog drafts, document summaries | Repetitive document writing |
| Translation | Documents, emails, webpages | General translation work |
| Image generation / editing | Ad images, thumbnails, drafts | Simple design / draft work |
| Audio / video processing | Subtitles, voice conversion, edit assistance | Repetitive editing work |
| Coding | Writing, fixing, testing, debugging code | Repetitive development work |
| Data analysis | Organizing data, analysis, visualization, reports | Basic analysis / reporting work |
| Customer support | FAQs, inquiries, booking / guidance | Repetitive customer response |
| Computer use | Web search, operating programs, data entry | Repetitive office work |
| AI agents | Multi-step research, document creation, task execution | Parts of many digital tasks |
| Robotics / physical AI | Automated manufacturing, logistics, transport, inspection | Repetitive, standardized on-site work |
Looking at this table, I thought of a business I'd been in touch with recently.
Not long ago, a client company asked me to test-print a design file they'd generated with AI, to see if it would come out right.
It wasn't perfect on the first try, but after a few rounds of asking the AI for revisions, we got an image file in exactly the format they wanted.
When we actually printed it, it turned out great.
And the company told me they'd set things up so the AI remembers those requirements going forward.
It turned out the designer who used to make these image files had left the company — and they'd decided not to hire a replacement.
Going forward, they plan to handle image work with AI instead.
One line in that table was playing out, right in front of me, in real life.
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Of course, one case alone doesn't mean "this job is disappearing."
Even within a single job, there's usually a mix — some parts AI can easily do, some parts a person still has to do.
So what really matters, I realized, isn't the name of the job — it's what I'm actually doing inside that job.
"What am I actually doing right now?"
"Which of my tasks can AI already do more easily than me?"
"How far can AI go in replacing my work?"
"And on the other hand, what's still hard for AI to do?"
I figured I should go through these one by one.
I write, I make videos, and I do inkjet printer-related work.
Drafting, translation, image concepts, video editing.
These parts, like that company's case, already sit largely on the left side of the table.
I've already handed a good chunk of this over to AI.
But what story to tell, which direction to take, what tone to use with whom —
that part still sits on the right side of the table.
So right now, my work is one where the left side keeps expanding,
and I'm holding my ground on whatever's left on the right.
The problem is, like that designer, this right-side column could narrow someday too.
Looking at it this way, instead of the vague question,
"Will AI replace my work?"
I get a little closer to a sharper one:
"Which part of my work disappears first?"
And only after that, I think, does it start to become clearer what I actually need to prepare for.
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Rather than just letting the coming AI era pass by, I think it's worth picturing that future clearly, at least once.
· A world where AI really does take over a huge share of the work, and even the right side of the table keeps narrowing.
· A world where human work keeps getting replaced by AI, bit by bit.
Honestly, it's a future I'd rather not think about.
But I think I need to draw that picture clearly in my mind, at least once, on purpose.
Because that's what lets me keep thinking about how I'll make a living, even while doing the work I do now.
And because when that reality actually arrives, I think it'll let me feel — "here it is, finally" — instead of pure shock.
A future you've already pictured is probably a little more bearable than one that hits you out of nowhere.
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As always, no one — not even the AI experts — can hand us the real answer we're looking for.
But from where I'm standing right now, I can at least take stock of this much:
Which parts of my work have already crossed over to the left side of the table.
And which parts are still sitting on the right.
From there, I can at least start thinking about what to prepare.
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The truth is, I'm trying to build something through writing.
It's not easy.
But this is something I love doing.
And apparently, the thing you love is the thing you can keep doing.
So I'm still here, writing this, with no answer in sight.
Whether this works out or not, I honestly don't know.
But there's one thing I'm sure of.
This series isn't exactly a fun read.
But for someone out there wrestling with a similar question, maybe it's something they can relate to.
That's enough for me, right now.
