The moment I almost became 'The Dinosaur Professor'
Will AI replace engineers? No one knows. But one thing is undeniable - we are living in the ‘adapt or die’ times. And I almost died.
When I was in college, several of my professors were teaching material that was clearly outdated. ‘Professor is not with the times’, we always said after yet another archaic lesson. We were wondering just how is it possible for someone to end up that behind the times.
Well… now I understand. Because we are living right at the time when the separation between the ones that adapt and the ones that stay behind is happening once again, this time in the age of AI. It has happened before. But what is different for me this time is that I almost ended up on the wrong side of the table.
At this point, I have 8 years of experience in engineering. And as I became more experienced, I became complacent - overconfident from success, thinking that I no longer need to learn anything new.
So naturally, when the AI craze began, I was very skeptical. I was too comfortable with my ways of working to give it up and adapt to something new. For the first time, I felt what my professors must’ve felt. Comfortable. Confident I knew enough. Skeptical of the new wave. That’s when it hit me - I was becoming the person that younger me promised never to become.
What’s more, I noticed a very similar attitude from my experienced colleagues. No one wanted to change the way they worked, and everyone wanted to go back to the ‘good old times’ without AI.
I did not notice this attitude in junior engineers. I wonder if they thought the same about me as we spoke: ‘The senior engineer isn’t keeping up’, completing the cycle that we started with our professors.
It is very uncomfortable to give up how I’ve worked my whole career, and I imagine it is even more uncomfortable for more experienced engineers. But this is it - this is the test of adaptability. As much as I’d like to continue working in the world without AI, writing 100% of my code, this reality is now in the past, and we have to move on. We have to let it go. Or we become the Dinosaurs.
Your challenge
I challenge experienced engineers to do a thinking exercise - are you living in the past? Are you lamenting on the good old times without AI? Me too. But, at some point you have to stop. Ask yourself if you are doing enough to adapt to the modern ways of working. If not, what do you have to do to get there?
I challenge you to spend one hour this week experimenting with an AI tool - Copilot, ChatGPT, or anything new. Not reading about it. Not arguing about its future. Just using it. Reflect on what it changes for you. Because ignoring it won’t make it go away.
‘The professor is not with the times’, we said, as we slowly switched off from the lecture and faced each other. We promised this would never happen to us.