The Human Advantage: what humans are still uniquely responsible for (Post 0 of 8)
AI can write your code now. Debug it too. It probably writes better status reports than you do (mine definitely aren't great). It'll draft those emails you've been avoiding since Monday.
So what's left for us?
In my opinion, AI is about to eat the boring parts of our jobs. The repetitive stuff that fries your brain by 2 p.m. will be gone.
That scares people. It shouldn't.
Because when the boring stuff disappears, you get more time and space. And how you use that extra time and space will determine the rest of your career.
–––
My LinkedIn feed is full of people grinding LeetCode at midnight.
Keep grinding. LeetCode gets you in the door. But staying in the room? That game is already changing while people are still writing binary trees.
And here's the gap nobody is talking about: nobody teaches the human part of the job.
Nobody teaches you how to handle other human nervous systems without burning yourself out.
That's why I'm starting a short series of posts I'm calling "The Human Advantage." I'm going to break down the human side of work in small pieces – not theory, just things I've actually seen.
Because the valuable work isn’t "write clean code" anymore. It's the messy human layer:
→ Knowing that some people need public recognition and some people just want a quiet "good job" in DMs
→ Telling your manager or your skip-level they're wrong without getting yourself deleted from the org chart (still working on this one)
→ Picking which fire to fight while three others are burning behind you
→ Reading the room when nobody is actually saying what they're thinking
We call these "soft skills," but this is the hardest part of the job.
–––
AI can't do many of these things yet.
Can it grab coffee with someone who's gone quiet and realize their kid is sick and they haven’t slept in three days?
No. That part is still on us.
–––
Quick disclaimer before people put me on a pedestal: I'm NOT a leadership expert with a 5 a.m. morning routine.
I've screwed up things in my life and career. Still figuring it out.
We all are.
But I've noticed patterns that actually matter:
→ Fear isn't weakness. It's data. It shows you exactly where you're not ready
→ Imposter syndrome only hits AFTER you've leveled up into a bigger room (think about that)
→ Trust isn't vibes. It's built like a product
→ Nobody scales alone. Even Batman had Alfred
→ Managing vs. leading: most people want the title, not the 2 a.m. responsibility of holding someone else's panic
I'll go into each of these in eight future posts. Small doses. No corp-speak.
Starting with: "AI will take the busy work. It will not take your humanity." as the next post.
If you're early in your career (or just feel like you're still early in the AI era), tell me this:
What's one human skill you wish someone had actually taught you? Drop it below. I'll read.
This is The Human Advantage.
#TheHumanAdvantage
—