Claude Code
A friend of mine once said that “Its a fascinating time to be in the tech industry at the moment. My ways of working are changing every three months”. At the time, I would have disagreed, but my first experience of Agentic AI was given to me when I was told to check out Claude Code.
Claude Code is a “CLI coding tool”, that is to say it operates within the command line of your computer (the black box). Unlike the regular means by which we interface with AI – copy and pasting, screenshotting, Claude Code is at liberty to read files and execute commands on your computer.
Gone are the days when I would have to serve as the middleman between the AI and the problem I was facing. Honestly, sometimes I felt like that was exactly the role I was playing – a middleman. During particularly desperate days, I would copy code errors into Claude, and wait for its response. Now that doesn't even happen anymore. I can ask Claude Code what my intentions are, and it will go off (with my permission) and build out an entire codebase at the press of a single button (or few).
This sends me into an interesting spiral about the future of the nature of our work. My mind is drawn to the Last Question, by Isaac Asimov, a short story I would urge the reader to peruse in their spare time – Engineers ceased to do the work, but only maintained communication between AI and intellectual property.
Someone on Reddit said “Software Engineering is experiencing the punk rockification that happened to music in the 70's, where a musician used to spend their entire life learning music theory to play in an orchestra. Now they only need to learn a few chords to make a band”. I think this is largely true.
So where does this leave us?
If the logic component of business development is going to be flattened by the onslaught of AI, then its fair to say that this “door” by which humans moved up from the lower classes to the middle class by means of software development and other logic based work may also close and I think that's what scares everyone.
On the other hand, I think this opens up some very interesting doors regarding how we live our lives. Now more than ever it is important to: – Nurture good relationships – Read wide
I say to nurture relationships, because I think people drive themselves to loneliness consuming themselves in their jobs – I certainly did that sometimes. I think finding ideas happens when conversations happens – exchanging ideas.
I also think there's merit to reading wider than ever. Pick up those unusual books on psychology that fascinate you.