The Human Cost of AI Automation: When Technology Eats Your Identity

The programming community stands at a peculiar crossroads in 2026. What began as a tool-assisted evolution has morphed into something more profound—a fundamental reshaping of what it means to be a programmer, and by extension, what it means to have a craft at all.

The author's journey reflects a sentiment growing louder in developer circles: AI isn't just changing how we code; it's changing who we are. The transformation runs deeper than workflow optimization or productivity gains. It strikes at the heart of identity, community, and the very nature of human expertise.

The Community Fracture

The programming world has always thrived on specialization and differentiation. Whether you were the "VPN Arch Linux guy" or the "automation wizard," these identities served as social currency, conversation starters, and connection points. Now AI threatens to democratize these once-exclusive skills.

This democratization creates an uncomfortable paradox. The author notes how AI has become "the thing that automates and fixes corporate VPNs on outdated distros better than I would be able to in a thousand lifetimes." The skill that once defined them—the ability to solve complex technical problems through deep understanding—has been rendered nearly obsolete by algorithms that can accomplish the same tasks faster and more reliably.

The community response to this shift reveals deeper tensions. The phrase "towards AI" encompasses everything from casual tool usage to full-scale product development, creating a spectrum where everyone claims some relationship to the technology. This vagueness masks profound disagreements about what programming means and where human expertise fits in an AI-dominated landscape.

The Identity Crisis

Perhaps most poignantly, the author describes AI as having "robbed" them of traits that formed their identity. Being "the guy that automates stuff" wasn't about superiority or power dynamics—it was about belonging to a community of practitioners who shared knowledge, stories, and experiences. When AI can automate anything, what remains of that identity?

The comparison to shoe shiners and milkmen facing technological obsolescence feels particularly apt. These professions didn't just disappear; they represented entire ways of life, communities of practice, and cultural touchstones. Programming faces a similar existential threat, but with the added complexity that the technology replacing human expertise is itself a product of human expertise.

The Credibility Problem

Open source development once provided clear signals about a programmer's capabilities. Public GitHub repositories showed not just what someone could build, but how they thought, debugged, and evolved their solutions over time. Now every line of code faces suspicion: "it might just be AI."

This skepticism creates a credibility crisis that extends beyond individual projects. When your life's work can be dismissed as AI-generated, what value does human craftsmanship hold? The author's solution—using AI for work but avoiding it for personal projects they care about learning from—reveals the impossible position many developers find themselves in. Use AI and risk losing your identity; avoid it and risk falling behind professionally.

The Philosophical Shift

The most profound change may be philosophical. Programming once offered the certainty of determinism: tell the computer what to do, and it does exactly that, "very fucking literally, to a fault." AI introduces randomness and unpredictability back into a field that prided itself on precision and control.

The author's experience of having "feelings for an algorithm" captures something surreal about this new reality. Getting angry at an AI's output feels fundamentally different from frustration with human-designed interfaces or inefficient algorithms. You're not critiquing design choices or implementation details—you're responding emotionally to the output of a system that operates on principles you can't fully understand or predict.

The Craft Question

Is programming becoming art? The author wonders if their craft has shifted from "something to be done out of need" to "something to be done out of love towards the craft itself." This transformation mirrors what happened to other technologies as they became automated—woodworking becoming fine woodworking, cooking becoming culinary arts.

The comparison to CNC machines and woodworkers is instructive. When manufacturing became automated, craftspeople didn't disappear; they evolved into artists, designers, and specialists who worked at a different level of abstraction. Programming may be undergoing a similar transformation, where the value shifts from implementation details to architectural vision, from syntax to semantics.

The Path Forward

The author's tentative solution—using agentic AI for work while preserving human agency for personally meaningful projects—suggests a potential way forward. This approach acknowledges AI's practical benefits while maintaining space for human creativity and learning.

The web interface for their blog, "vibe coded" without regret, represents a pragmatic acceptance of AI's role in handling tasks that don't require deep engagement. Not every project needs to be a learning experience or a statement of craft. Some things just need to work.

The Broader Implications

This personal narrative reflects broader societal questions about automation, expertise, and human value. When AI can perform any cognitive task better than humans, what becomes of human expertise? When everyone can be an expert, what does expertise mean?

The programming community's struggle offers a preview of challenges facing other professions. Writers, designers, analysts, and countless others will face similar questions about identity, credibility, and purpose as AI capabilities expand.

The answer may lie not in resisting AI or surrendering completely to it, but in finding new ways to define human value in an AI-augmented world. Perhaps the future belongs not to those who can code the fastest or automate the most, but to those who can envision what should be built and why.

For now, the author mourns their craft while continuing to use the very tools that threaten it. This tension—between practical necessity and emotional loss, between progress and identity—defines the current moment in programming and perhaps in human development itself. The question isn't whether AI will transform programming, but how programmers will transform themselves in response.