ASI and Human Careers

ASI doesn't mean the end of human careers. I think an intelligent AI would recognize the value in brainstorming with others. As an analogy, if you are a teacher with a masters degree, with a class of 3rd graders, and you asked them to help you think of creative ideas, they would probably come up with ideas you wouldn't think of, some that could be useful.

© 2026 Praveen Puri

Human Economic value: Have fun and play make believe

Someone on Reddit posted a quote purportedly from someone at Anthropic: "There is simply no future where humans continue to do economically useful work for much longer.

Your choice is at best between various flavors of 'ASI let's humans have fun and play make believe'."

I disagree. Ironically, he states the answer in his quote.

Q: "Is there a future where humans continue to do economically useful work for much longer?"

A: "Humans have fun and play make believe."

Our most economically useful value is the ability to dream up new ideas, uses, and concepts. It fits together with super AI. We're Aladdin and ASI will be the genie.

© 2026 Praveen Puri

Human vs. AI Creativity

AI won't take 100% of all the jobs. Even if AI is super intelligent, there is more value in having humans co-brainstorm with them, rather than have them try to design/strategize everything. Humans are really good at daydreaming, thinking outside the box, and lateral thinking: seeing connections between fields, and making analogies to borrow process and principles from one field to apply them to another.

© 2026 Praveen Puri

Executive Delegation

If you're a time-strapped leader, tell your reports not to simply bring you an issue and say "What should we do?" Instead, they should also propose a couple of solutions. This does several things:

1. It develops their skills.

2. One of the solutions may be the right one, so you can simply tell them to do it.

3. Stating proposed solutions helps you understand the issue quicker, and gets you a head start on working out the solution.

© 2026 Praveen Puri

Be An Active Seeker of Information

Don't be a passive consumer of information.  

Background: I read a Yahoo News article on Troy Aikman, and why he sold his stake in the Padres.  He was part of a minority ownership group that tried to buy a majority stake. In the article, the reason he sold was because the head of his group wasn't approved by the other owners to take control.

Then, I went to the comments, and many people were complaining that they wanted to know why the guy wasn't approved, and they were criticizing the article for not providing the information.

Here's the thing: 1. That's not the main point of the article.  2. (Most importantly) Don't be a passive consumer of an article.  If the article has whetted your appetite for related info, or a deeper dive then, instead of complaining that the article was insufficient, do your own search.  Google your questions, and find out.

© 2026 Praveen Puri

The Zen of Soccer

Watching today's World Cup match between Spain and Portugal reinforced how soccer (football) is a metaphor for life and zen.

There's no need to force things, rush, or panic.  Simply pass the ball, keep things flowing, and have an alert and empty mind, so you spot opportunity.

For 99% of the match, neither Spain nor Portugal could score, but they kept the ball flowing.  Finally, in the 91st minute (start of stoppage time), a direct lane to the goal opened up, and Spain scored to win.

No brute force, just elegance.

© 2026 Praveen Puri

The Boom and Bust Cycles of Software Employment

Today, it may be hard for many people to get jobs in the software field. But this isn't new. Software employment has had boom and bust cycles for decades.

My mother, who was an administrative assistant at Digital Equipment Corporation back in the early '80's, took some programming classes, and tried to move into a programming role, but they wouldn't promote her. They said you needed a degree and needed experience with at least 3 languages.  They were picky back then, because there were no shortages.

When I graduated with a CS degree in 1990, hiring was slow because of the recession.  I got lucky, and a job based on my project at U of I'd Engineering Open House event.  It was specifically on using computers to control lasers, and that's exactly what the company was looking for,

At other times, such as the late 1990's, and the 2010's (until a few years ago), it was boom! If you had a pulse and did a 3 month boot camp, they'd take you. I know many people in the software field who all had degrees in physics, astronomy, biology, English, civil and mechanical engineering, etc. They started in one of the boom times.

The reason software goes through these cycles is because, most of the time,  IT is treated as an expense, like HR or accounting.  They want to save money and do as little as possible. This is when it's tough to get hired.

Every once in a while, something new appears (like the internet, mobile, AI, etc). Then, leaders have FOMO and everyone jumps on the bandwagon. Suddenly, technology is strategic, and they overhire like crazy.

Then, it wears off and they lay people off during the hangover.

© 2026 Praveen Puri