Chronicle of a Obsolescence Foretold

I remember when I was in college. I studied CS. The first thing I learn was how to program in C. In that time, some people thought that I should have learned assembly as well, because that's the closest and most efficient way to talk with the machine. Never learned it, even when I could used it, just wrote a C program and it was translated as a assambly program.

When I enter to my current job, there was this man. It was a wizard in Linux and Unix; he was brillant, but also very stubborn, closed to its technologies and ways to work (not a chance to make him try vim instead of vi). He was also difficult to work with. I felt that once you find your way with him, you could learn a lot from him, and I was right in that case. I learned a lot from him and worked my patience. Also, he was a great man, outside from the working context. He was fired some years later. He could not work its way in the new wave of automation and cloud, and it's attitude make him difficult to work with a team. That was scary and depressing; I fear that no one could hire him again, for it's age and it's stubbornness. Not old enough to retire, not young enough to find a good job. I still hope that he have the way to still support his family.

Now with all this AI wave I feel closer to that man situation. I felt great when I was the expert in my field and I could help anyone, when I could find my way in a problem with my skillset. And don't get me wrong, I always try to be open with what I know. "My knowledge it's not mine, its everybody's" was always my motto. But knowing that now a prompt can throw a way better solution makes me feel a little old and obsolete. Similar to that C/Assambly situation.

I feel a little lost in this poit of my life. I know I should keep updating and studying, but I don't know what to study, knowing that my attention, energy and time are limited. And I don't want to outsource my brain to an LLM. I don't want to just throw a prompt and use whatever it shows. I know AI it's a great tool, but I want to leverage it, not being consumed by it.