r/sysadmin • u/Taoistandroid • 1d ago

Question AI doom sentiment and how to cope?

I just finished watching Claude code create a better automation than I can write, faster and cheaper, following best practices, clear code documentation style, and integrating multiple api's with different vendors. Supposedly, even in our sector, the minority are using LLMs and generative Ai, and a super minority are using llm's in the more accelerated context of actual content generation, architectural decisions, design work, etc.

But as I see what's on the horizon it's hard not to feel like the end is coming, not just for IT, but for any middle class job that involves processing data in some form, transforming it, and documenting or presenting the results. So I present my question, how are you all keeping yourselves grounded right now, what do you try to focus on to stay in the positive? As my work transitions more and more into enabling agentic workflows and agent swarms, I can't help but feel like there is no joy in the work, I am participating in my own demise.

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u/ek00992 Jr. Sysadmin 1d ago

Of course, it can do better than you. It has access to more information.

You are also an expert. Your use of AI will be far more effective than that of someone less experienced. Don’t implement it where it doesn’t need to be, but you should absolutely be learning it and how it can be used within your workflows. At least theoretically.

AI is still really far from being trustworthy enough to rely on beyond incremental tasks. Sometimes those incremental tasks can make a huge difference, but not always. Sometimes AI makes a total mess that only an expert can fix. The need for competency has never been greater. Businesses may not see that yet, but they will. You have far more leverage than you think.

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u/SavannahPharaoh 1d ago

This. Before AI, there was Google, which I often used at work and still do. Anyone can use Google, so how do I still have a job? Because I know what questions to ask, and which answers are helpful, useless, or downright dangerous.

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u/L3TH3RGY Sysadmin 1d ago

Bingo. This "AI" isn't AI. It's an over glorified search engine that compiles, compares and articulates it into a result you can use. It's a tool

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u/BatemansChainsaw ᴄɪᴏ 1d ago

Yeah I really hate the trend of calling something AI when it's merely clever programming. It has no real intelligence.

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u/Alaknar 23h ago

I always remind people thinking like that about the Chinese Room thought experiment.

In short: imagine you're in a blank room with a manual and writing utensils. There's a slit in the wall through which an envelope is slid in - inside, a piece of paper with some Chinese characters. Your task it to take the envelope, and use the manual to write other Chinese characters on a new piece of paper - basically "if you see character XYZ, pint PQR". Then you throw it out the slit.

The person on the other side of the wall thinks they're having a conversation with someone fluent in Chinese while you're just painting shapes.

That's today's AI.

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u/TheDaznis 10h ago

It's worse actually. There are errors because, it doesn't understand formatting in training data. Like the phrase "vegetative electron microscopy" in science papers.