AI Won’t Take Your Job. Poor Problem-Solving Will.

Hi everyone!

Long time no see! Today I wanted to share something that has got me thinking lately.

In a machine learning group I’m part of, panic recently broke out over AI taking our jobs. My reaction? AI won’t take our jobs, but poor problem-solving might.

Here’s why:

Problem Solvers vs. Button Pushers: If your role is limited to repetitive tasks or “pressing buttons” on existing tools, then yes, AI can replace that. But those who can frame problems, adapt to new contexts, and design solutions remain indispensable.
The Human Context: AI is powerful at pattern recognition, but it doesn’t create context. Humans connect messy, ambiguous real-world situations to the abstract logic that models need. Without that, AI often falls short.

Take a recent project: I had to automate a 37-page PowerPoint in R for 80 companies. The tricky part came when slide ordering had to change dynamically depending on each company. AI tools I tried couldn’t solve the logic behind reordering; some even told me it was “impossible to do so in R.”

But once I figured out the underlying sequence logic myself, AI became incredibly helpful. It executed my step-by-step plan flawlessly. The breakthrough wasn’t in the tool, but in the human ability to decompose the problem.

This reminded me that AI is not a replacement for ingenuity. It’s an amplifier. Our roles aren’t disappearing. They are evolving, and the sharper our problem-solving skills, the more powerful AI becomes in our hands.

What do you think? Have you faced situations where AI couldn’t solve the problem until you provided the logic?

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