Every few months, there’s a new wave of panic about AI taking over tech jobs, especially developer, data scientist, and data engineer roles. I see posts claiming that “AI can code better than humans” or that “data science is dead because of ChatGPT.” Honestly? I don’t buy it.
AI isn’t replacing developers or data people, it’s just shifting where our time and thinking go. Yes, AI can write SQL queries, generate models, or draft code faster than we can. But that’s not where the real value of a data scientist or developer comes from. The real work starts before and after the code, understanding the problem, designing the right approach, and making decisions when data is messy or incomplete.
AI can replicate outputs that look like critical thinking, but that’s different from actually understanding or reasoning. What we see now is more like a synthetic reflection of human reasoning, pattern-based, not independent cognition. It mimics the structure of thought without having any real awareness of context or consequences. And that’s where humans still matter most. We weigh trade-offs, question assumptions, and know when something doesn’t make sense.
In reality, developers are already spending a good part of their time fixing AI-generated bugs. At some point, teams will realize that it’s not that efficient to let an LLM “vibe code” first and then pay humans to clean up after it. It’s like hiring a junior dev who writes code without understanding what it’s for. So no, AI isn’t cutting developer or data jobs. It’s cutting lazy thinking, the kind that assumes value comes from typing code, not from designing good systems or asking the right questions. What’s changing is how we work: less repetition, more judgment. The people who will thrive are those who combine technical skill with critical insight, not those who just prompt an assistant and copy-paste.
I’m still watching this shift from the inside, working full-time while learning, building, and testing what’s real versus what’s hype. Maybe AI will keep evolving fast, but so will we. And that’s what makes this whole transition interesting: figuring out what still needs a human mind.