Hidden career crisis in the technological era

One day, our editorial group shared a news about the unemployment rankings. Among the top ten were editors and journalists, and my colleagues joked that they should sell socks under the overpass. I didn’t pay much attention to the news at the time. I always thought that words are an irreplaceable language, especially Chinese, which is so profound. It was not until I participated in Yidian Zixun’s offline salon on human-machine intelligence that I realized the seriousness of the matter and my sense of crisis gradually grew.

In addition to the divorce of Wang Baoqiang and Ma Rong that spread across the streets this year, there was also the AlphaGo victory over Lee Sedol that became a hot topic, so AI, a science and technology that defies nature, has also become a hot topic. Everyone is impressed by the powerful algorithms of this science and technology, but some people (like me) may have to worry about career choices. Regarding AlphaGo's victory over Lee Sedol, a statement that is agreed by most people is "This is not a victory for artificial intelligence, but a victory for humans," because artificial intelligence comes from humans and is a further improvement in human science and technology. In fact, I agree with this statement, which is very reasonable and harmonious. Some people also say that artificial intelligence is not something to be afraid of, because it will take some time for the technology to mature, and it is impossible to be popularized too quickly, and it will not cause many people to lose their jobs now.

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But looking to the future, I am also a little scared.

In 2013, there was a very literary movie called "Her", which tells the story of a man who was frustrated in love and fell in love with a female operating system. Of course, this happened in 2025. I first watched this movie in 2013. At that time, I didn't even know what AI was. I really thought the movie was a bit nonsense. When I was about to write this article, I remembered this movie and simply watched it again. Then I understood why the editing industry would be eliminated.

The male protagonist in the movie is actually an editor who specializes in writing love letters, but the point is here. Love letters are a kind of writing that only people with delicate emotions can write. Being able to write love letters as a profession shows that the male protagonist is full of emotions. However, such a person is not smooth in love, but he actually fell in love with an operating system. In the eyes of the male protagonist, he and the operating system are more compatible, and there are definitely many people who make friends with operating systems in that era. I can't imagine myself falling in love with Siri who speaks in a stuttering way or having intimate conversations with her. At most, it can kill time. At that time, the operating system could already speak like a normal person, and control the tone properly, and even guess people's hearts. Isn't personification scary?

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How long have you not heard the shouts of "flicking cotton and beating quilt covers"? It is hard to see scales in the vegetable market, and there are almost no manual jobs on the factory assembly line. Where have they gone? Machines, which are extremely efficient and can be repaired without holidays, have become the first choice to replace manual labor. In fact, the profession of editor may be replaced by AI, which is the same as the replacement of humans by machines. Facebook's layoffs of the manual editing team of "hot topics" led to fake news on the platform, and the machine algorithm replaced the manual editing team. Artificial intelligence has been firmly implemented in various fields such as technology, medical care, education, shopping, and transportation, and the application of machines in the content field will make content distribution more efficient. Shopping such as Taobao and JD.com, news such as Tencent and Yidian Zixun, there will always be "Guess you like" channels, which perform algorithm analysis based on the user's browsing direction and recommend relevant news and items to you. This kind of work cannot be done by manual editors, because the number of contents intervened by manual editors is limited, and they cannot analyze the personalized differences of users well, so this kind of work is most suitable for algorithms.

But is it appropriate to lay off human editors like Facebook did and leave the editing work entirely to algorithms? The author believes that this is not feasible. It is not because I am an editor that I think such layoffs are inappropriate, but there are some things that machines cannot replace humans. The reason is very simple. Simply relying on machines can easily lead to a decline in content quality, which will create a space for chicken soup and clickbait titles.

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I remember that in biology class, the teacher talked about cloning technology, and there were various reports saying that cloning should be banned and would threaten our harmonious life. Later, I watched cartoons and movies that mentioned how versatile robots are, and even fell in love with people and took care of people's daily lives. People can no longer live without them. Now AI has appeared. In fact, AI is not the evolution of cloning technology and robots. People say no, but their bodies are honest. The pursuit of technology and the desire to upgrade their lives are actually understandable, just like when I was a child, I wanted a robot to help me do my homework.

So I decided to think carefully about what I should do to support myself if I am really replaced one day. Before upgrading my life, I should think carefully about what I can do to enjoy this kind of life. However, I still hope that my boss will not think of firing me (putting my hands together to pay respect to the boss)