I think the author (and many people, including myself) is missing something crucial.

Yes AI can solve very difficult problems without requiring you to understand enough about it.

This gives the impression that you can solve anything, create anything, and put it out there. And because this seems to be true, you feel less motivation to go and do it, because it’s so easily achievable. It seems AI is robbing your ability to differentiate yourself and push hard on a direction and build something that matters.

However, I have a feeling that is increasing over time. I believe that this is not true at all.

Even with AI, an enormous amount of energy needs to come from within one self, to truly create something meaningful that is used by other people. Just because AI can spit out code that solves a set of problems, it doesn’t mean it’s ready to be used and that it will turn out to be something people actually care and use.

If your only ambition was solve a hard problem, and the problem was purely technical, I agree you are in a bad spot, but then again this is not gone. People play single player videogames fully knowing they can finish the game and they can even hack if they wanted but they don’t, they still enjoy playing, it just means this is now perhaps a hobby rather than something you can profit from.

Creating a product however, remains difficult I believe. A product that people actually enjoy using and solves something. If anything the bar is higher, and it is very hard to differentiate. I think this is more challenging than before, not less.

So if you shift your ambition to be, I want to create something people actually enjoy and it’s useful, and I can survive the next few years and have a competitive advantage, I think this is incredibly difficult.