Was watching an interview with David Bombal(IT Youtuber) and David William Plummer(Retired Microsoft Coder) the other day and David Plumer had mentioned something about his life being based on survival by technical merit.. The term stuck in my head something fierce due to the alignment with my own tactic of surviving in a world that is increasingly moving towards automation and machine learning tools to accomplish work.

Of course this ideology extends beyond IT / Technical work. As both blue and white collar workers essentially live in this sort of way.. But it was kind of neat to hear David Plummer say this and express it in a way that resonated with me. The dude is incredibly intelligent and supposedly has high functioning Asperger's.. Which makes sense. Some of the most intelligent tech guys I know score extremely high on the autism quotient test (myself included - scored 35/50).

We live in a world where more and more "menial" leaning jobs are being replaced with automation. Rather that fear the incoming technological revolution in regards to making work easier for many fields it's probably best practice to embrace it in order to maximize ones efficiency in their field than to be put of or fearful of the unstoppable tide of AI and automation we're currently living through.

_{( this was the video the "survival by technical merit" quote comes from )}

AI & Automation is the Next Industrial Revolution

Things like Chat-GPT or GPT-J are neat tools to help with tasks in a "force multiplier" setting, none of these tools are perfect or "production ready" in a lot of situations. You need to know how to pick out the errors in the syntax and code these things generate else they are next to useless. The current LLM (large language models) the 2 AI helpers listed above use are certainly not replacements for educated minds looking at code functions, but can greatly increase through output in certain situations given the right IT worker using them.

just as the printing press and steam engine completely changed the landscape on how things are distributed and developed, so too shall we see massive global changes on the plenum of what almost certainly will be disruptive technology in regards to almost everything. They are 3D printing houses, hell even rockets, using AI aided CAD to design things and using machine learning to create new substances to combat illnesses. I don't believe everything will be replaced by bots / machine learning.. But if you aren't leveraging the tools available you will almost certainly fall behind those who are embracing it.

Accepting that AI is here to stay and the new normal is a huge step...

Self Education vs Classical Academia

As someone who is by all currently agreed upon metrics of education deemed "uneducated" I've always taken pride in being able to self teach with the help of the internet and having mentors to guide the building of my knowledge base. I'm certainly not some incredibly intelligent individual, with my IQ scores only being slightly above the abysmal average that our species seems to average out to. We're currently living in an incredible time where the vast majority of our species collective knowledge base is available to everyone on the internet.

While classical academia still has it's purposes (I don't want a google trained surgeon operating on me, for example) we're slowly moving towards a society where technical ability and merit itself can get you a job with some of the world's most powerful companies. An eye opener for me personally was when it was leaked that google would hire people without any degrees of any sort, instead testing them on their technical knowledge and ability regardless of how it was acquired.

Academia tends to lean towards making "cookie cutter" workers, all trained in the same way and indoctrinated to think along the same lines.. This is absolutely fine for a lot of work we see available these days, but ultimately handicaps a company if every worker only knows what everyone else does.. It's when you get people who have self taught and can bring new means and methodology to a field where innovation occurs. I'm certainly not saying that all self taught technical types are superior to classically trained and certified individuals, however having a mix of both styles of training on your team often come with massive bonuses for development or design.

( Not shitting on classically trained IT or whatever, it's the old "accepted" way in society )

It boils down to simply this, You are currently carrying almost all of the knowledge our species has in your pocket with your cell phone.. You can use the internet for shitposting or watching cat memes.. But you can also use it to learn all sorts of crazy sciences and knowledge which can then in turn be leveraged to make you more attractive to companies looking to hire technical individuals.

You no longer need to go to school to get degrees or certifications to be a player in a lot of these technical spaces. You are 100% allowed to self teach and flex your survival by technical merit style of life. No one is really talking about this shift in the way our species is beginning to leverage our technologies.. At the end of the day your mind can be sharpened immensely depending on what you focus on with your time online. Whatever you focus on grows, always remember that.

There is knowledge out there to train your brain to do damn near anything.
_{( Do you have any input on this or did you do the autism quotient test? Share your mind / score below! )}

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