>skills, which later generations of operators cannot be expected to have.

You can't ring more true than this. For decades now.

For a couple years there I was able to get some ML together and it helped me get my job done, never came close to AI, I only had kilobytes of memory anyway.

By the time 1983 rolled around I could see the writing on the wall, AI was going to take over a good share of automation tasks in a more intelligent way by bumping the expert systems up a notch. Sometimes this is going to be a quantum notch and it could end up like "expertise squared" or "productivity squared" [0]. At the rarefied upper bound. Using programmable electronics to multiply the abilities of the true expert whilst simultaneously the expert utilized their abilities to multiply the effectiveness of the electronics. Maybe only reaching the apex when the most experienced domain expert does the programming, or at least runs the show.

Never did see that paper, but it was obvious to many.

I probably mentioned this before, but that's when I really bucked down for a lifetime of experimental natural science across a very broad range of areas which would be more & more suitable for automation. While operating professionally within a very narrow niche where personal participation would remain the source of truth long enough for compounding to occur. I had already been a strong automation pioneer in my own environment.

So I was always fine regardless of the overall automation landscape, and spent the necessary decades across thousands of surprising edge cases getting an idea how I would make it possible for someone else to even accomplish some of these difficult objectives, or perhaps one day fully automate. If the machine intelligence ever got good enough. Along with the other electronics, which is one of the areas I was concentrating on.

One of the key strategies did turn out to be outliving those who had extensive troves of their own findings, but I really have not automated that much. As my experience level becomes less common, people seem to want me to perform in person with greater desire every decade :\

There's related concepts for that too, some more intelligent than others ;)

[0] With a timely nod to a college room mate who coined the term "bullshit squared"

> By the time 1983 rolled around

That early? There were people claiming that back then, but it didn't really work.