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Confessions of a Human in the Age of AI

EM
Eduardo Martos
CTO & Software Architect
Este artículo también está disponible en español.

Imagen generada con ChatGPT.

Image generated with ChatGPT.
My latest article has generated quite a conversation in other channels. That, which is already a reward in itself, has had an unexpected effect: it has pushed me to write this reply.

Some have asked me if I wrote it with AI. Others reproached me for throwing out questions without getting involved. Today I pick up the challenge: it’s time to give my opinion without reservations.

🕒 Summary for busy people

Estimated reading time for the full article: 8 minutes.

I did not write this text with AI, and precisely for that reason, I wanted to reflect on what it means to continue writing —and thinking— as humans.

History repeats itself: every technological revolution awakens fear, fascination, and apocalyptic discourses. But behind the noise, what is at stake is something more than employment. It is our identity.

Machines already program, design, and even listen; what they still cannot do is understand. We can rely on them to speed up tasks, but giving up thought, empathy, or purpose would be to cede what defines us.

Perhaps the real challenge is not to compete with AI, but to remember why we do what we do. Learning, creating, and connecting with others are profoundly human acts. And if one day that is also automated, only one question will remain: what part of ourselves do we want to preserve?

Am I using AI to write this?

The quick answer: no.

The long answer: I believe that AI should be limited to specific, repetitive tasks, where it does not matter who executes them. An opinion piece like this would lose its meaning if it were signed by a model instead of me.

I do use it for more mundane things: suggesting editorial calendar topics, generating header images, etc. Approximately half of the machine’s suggestions are useful to me. But the text, the idea, the tone… remain mine.

Sometimes, like last week and right now, I ignore the calendar suggestions and dive into improvisation. Knowing myself, that will probably be what happens most of the time.

From Ludism to “Prompt-ism”

The fear that machines will take our jobs is not new. The Luddites of the 19th century already destroyed looms out of fear of being replaced. Each technological revolution has rehashed the debate.

Traditionally, it was associated with manual labor, the so-called blue collar jobs. Today, the threat seems to loom over white collar professions, the intellectual professions. But the truth is that we have been delegating cognitive tasks for over a century: from calculators to word processors, including automatic translators, spell checkers, and editors with autocomplete. I suppose humans identify more with our intellect, which is why the perception of danger is higher.

Yes, some professions disappeared, like the “coder” of punch cards, but others always emerged.

Whose territory is it really?

Some will say that AI will not only take tasks but entire professions. Can a machine really replace a qualified professional in all its nuances? I have serious doubts.

Even if that were the case, we would enter a curious scenario: without mass employment, who buys? The usual response is the wildcard of universal basic income.

But an insufficient universal income is not a guarantee of well-being. In that case, perhaps the artisanal, the made by humans, will resurface as a value in itself. An imperfect scenario, but not necessarily catastrophic.

Learning in times of machines that learn

In the previous article, I asked: is it worth learning programming and creativity? My answer now is clear: more than ever.

Programming is not just typing code: it is understanding a problem and designing flexible solutions. Creativity and programming are, in fact, two sides of the same coin.
Yes, models generate code. But without direction, without purpose, that code is little more than a skeleton.

The same goes for creativity. LLMs can generate music, images, or scripts. But if we all had Kubrick’s resources, how many of us would shoot 2001: A Space Odyssey? The work is not in the means, but in the vision.

Unless we are willing to give up making decisions, to think for ourselves, we will continue to be necessary. My friend José Carlos León reflects on all this with greater depth, detail, and skill in his essay Post-Intelligence Society, which I highly recommend.

Is empathy also automated?

Before asking ourselves if empathy will give us a competitive advantage, we should consider something more radical: would we be willing to give it up if it did not serve to make money?

I try to be empathetic because I believe it improves the world, not because it brings me a benefit. But it is true that more and more young people use chatbots to vent. A report fromCommon Sense Media (2025) found that over 70% of teenagers had interacted with “AI companions,” and a significant percentage did so seeking emotional support.

Is this negative because it displaces human psychologists, or positive because it opens a door for venting to those who did not have one? Probably both.

The what is already done by the machine, what about the how?

In customer service, we see it clearly: chatbots resolve routine issues, but when the problem is complex, a human always appears.

The challenge is not so much what tasks we do, but how we do them. Our ability to manage nuances, context, and ambiguity is still distinctive.

If one day machines match even that, we will be in a science fiction scenario. And at that point, I confess, I run out of opinion. I am left only with perplexity.

The great challenge of our era is knowing who we are

Never before has a technology forced us to look in the mirror with such urgency.

Progress (or the illusion of it) is so dizzying that it has awakened our most visceral fears.

The essential thing is to define what makes us human and defend it. As Valerie’s letter in V for Vendetta said:

A part. It is small and fragile and it is the only thing worth having in this world.

We must not lose it, sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

Let us seek that part. And let us defend it uncompromisingly.

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References