Like many others I have been wondering how AI is going to impact us long term, and how it's going to change the value humans provide.
In the latest series of Clarkson’s farm, Jeremy is testing the new technology to help automate farming. Self driving tractors, automated planters, drones etc. Instead of sitting in a tractor he’s got monitors set up in his barn and he controls all these machines which work day and night, with little human input. He sets them on a task and they work at it until it is done. There are obviously still gaps that the machines don’t do on their own and need Jeremy’s help. Like getting to the fields on public roads, refuelling, deciding which crops to plant in which field, and I imagine maintenance. But, many of these gaps can plausibly be automated with current technology. So these gaps will surely get narrower over time.
Soon farmers might be sat at desks rather than in a tractor. Over seeing the machines, filling in the gaps of things that haven’t yet been automated.
Changes like these are happening across the board. Five years ago all my code was written by hand. But now I rarely manually write any code. Instead I ask an agent to do it. If there is a problem with a database, I ask the agent to scrape the logs and metrics and give a summary. It does this in a few minutes without me having to leave the terminal or remember any commands. If a new feature needs developing, I discuss it with an agent and get it to write a document that the team can review.
I do not think writing code has ever been the biggest bottleneck in software engineering. The harder part is understanding what should be built, why it matters, and how the work fits into a wider human context.
Still, more is being automated. We are becoming software engineers of the gaps, managers of the gaps, teachers of the gaps, farmers of the gaps. If nearly everything can be automated, what value do we provide?
I think there are some interesting parallels and maybe partial answers with the God of the Gaps argument. People used to justify God’s existence by explaining complex things that they couldn’t explain. For example they would say ‘the eye is complex, it must have been created by a God’. But as science developed more things could be explained and less could justify God’s existence. The weakness of a God of the gaps argument is that it makes God depend on the gaps in current human knowledge. If those gaps shrink, the argument shrinks with them. Does the existence of God depend on us not being able to explain the physical world? No, the existence and value of God would have to come from something beyond this.
Similarly, we shouldn't locate human value in the gaps that AI cannot yet fill. If our value comes from doing what isn't automated, then our value will feel smaller every time machines improve.
So what is beyond the gaps? One answer is the question of why, rather than how. The existence of any God gives a strong reason for why we exist, gives us meaning and purpose. So even if science can explain everything about how the Universe came to be, it will always struggle with a why.
For Christians, God tells humans to fill the earth, subdue it, and rule over the living world. Humans are placed within creation to cultivate it, order it, draw out its potential, and care for it under God.
Seen that way, technology doesn't take away our value. Instead a tractor, database, or AI can all be tools that help humans carry out that work. They allow us to shape the world, and solve real problems. But tools do not decide what kind of world we are trying to build.
As AI becomes better, then our work may become more about judgement, and alignment.
AI can increasingly answer the how. How do I debug this error? How do I generate this report? How do I automate this workflow? But the more important question may become why. The same is true in farming. AI could automate huge parts of food production. But the purpose of farming is not simply to produce as much food as possible at any cost. It is to feed people, care for the land, and sustain communities. The why is not merely technical or economic. It is moral.
We are valuable because we can judge what the work is for, what it should serve, and what it should never be allowed to become.
AI may keep taking over more of the how. The important question is whether humans can hold on to the why, and whether that why is strong enough to guide the systems we are building.