Quotes from the article:

'Work as Identity: The Foundation'

Knowledge workers hold a different relationship to their labor than manufacturing workers did. For a cognitive professional, expertise is not only an activity. It is a large part of the self. A data scientist who has spent a decade building statistical judgment does not experience that judgment as a detachable tool. It is closer to a personality trait. When automation threatens the work, it reaches past the income and touches the identity.'

Excerpt from the article above. It heavily leans on Reddit quotes, articles posted on Reddit and the number of upvotes to backup or sustain certain arguments. But I found the article informative, and publishing a message and a feeling I've been struggling to describe, write or externalise. Hope it's helpful or at least interesting to us here.

Apparently my feelings of disillusionment, confusion, anxiety, failing self esteem and occasionally anger or frustration from AI has a name that's starting to be written and formalised. Though not yet accepted either informally or formally, but it's starting a conversation which I'm thankful for, _Artificial Intelligence Replacement Dysfunction_. From the article:

"In September 2025, two psychiatrists at the University of Florida College of Medicine, Stephanie McNamara and Joseph E. Thornton, published a paper in the journal Cureus proposing a new construct they call Artificial Intelligence Replacement Dysfunction, or AIRD."

I'll be sharing this article with my psychologist when we meet in a few weeks.

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ThrowawayR2 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

[delayed]

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16 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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throwatdem12311 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Similar to LLM smells in writing, anyone that blogs about Reddit comments to make broad extrapolations about society or psychology or anything really…I just write it off as slop.

They’re low effort takes from terminally online weirdos. The number of upvotes something gets is meaningless. Using it as some kind of appeal to authority or credibility on a topic is a joke.

Like those SEO slop gaming articles about “controversies” because some anonymous account on Reddit complained that a character got race swapped or something.

This crap gets pulled into Google search results and gets repeated as truth by Gemini when it does a web search.

It’s gross.

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harvey9 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The idea that skilled people who work with their hands don't identify with their work is laughable.

	▲	sudosteph 4 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yes, and this is something that is routinely overlooked. Work identities run deep, and they are not easily changed. Andrew Yang actually made a strong point when he was talking about automation-driven job losses way back in 2019. He said you can offer the best and most expensive retraining programs imaginable to help people displaced from their jobs move to fields like healthcare - but most truck drivers, even if out of work, will never even consider retaining to work as a nurse. Identities are not as malleable to the whims of supply and demand as some might want to believe.
	▲	brianleb 10 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		OP did not say anything about skilled workers who make things with their hands. You are describing an artisan or craftsman, or at the very least a tradesman. The quote is talking about manufacturing labor. This is the guy on the assembly line who lowers the press, makes his thousandth widget for a day, and then lifts it up. Rinse and repeat.
	▲	agumonkey 20 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		One tiny nanoscopic nitpick, because i agree with you mostly, programming is often creating wider things (abstractions, frameworks). I think it hits a different part compared to most jobs. Maybe... i'm not sure, but that's how i feel compared to other manual occupations that i loved too.
	▲	somenameforme 28 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's also reflective of the author living in a very small bubble. It's quite a shame that chose to include that as I think the article is otherwise relevant and pertinent, but it colors the whole thing.

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thehwang 36 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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parpfish 21 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

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