TL;DR: My recent assertion that most future jobs will be in the "experience economy" (or "sales") has caused confusion. This post is the clarification: the danger isn't that AI will take your job; it's that you are actively choosing to compete in the same racetrack. We are humans. Our greatest evolutionary advantage has always been our ability to change the game, not to out-muscle the competition. This article deconstructs the only three questions that separate a human "architect" from a "tool," and why, in the AI era, your lived, felt experience is the only asset that truly matters.
I am James, CEO of Mercury Technology Solutions.
A reader recently asked me, "What if I don't want to be in sales? Does that mean I'm doomed to compete directly with AI?"
Not at all. But this question reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of our new reality.
For years, I've been working with AI in programming/ content creation. The progression has always been logical: first, I do the work myself. Then, I write a script to do the work. Eventually, the script I write begins to write its own scripts. This is the natural evolution.
If your strategic perspective is always "who is stronger?" or "who is faster?" you are, by definition, viewing yourself as a tool. And as a tool, you will always lose to a better tool. It's inevitable.
The reason humanity has succeeded is not because we have the wings of an eagle or the claws of a tiger. We succeeded because we refused to compete with eagles and tigers on their terms. We changed the racetrack.
If you now tell me that your entire career strategy is to prove you're a better "tool" than the most powerful tool ever invented, I can only conclude that you are abdicating the very attribute that makes you human.
The Three Questions That Define Your Humanity (and Your Value)
As a human, your greatest strategic advantage is your ability to answer three simple, profound questions:
- What do I have? (A clear-eyed inventory of your true assets, skills, and constraints)
- What do I want? (A definitive vision for the future)
- What am I willing to sacrifice? (The strategic trade-offs you will make to achieve that vision)
I have used AI as a trading assistant for a long time, and my colleagues in other industries who use it intensively all report the same finding: AI is incredibly powerful, but it doesn't know what it's doing.
Of course, most people don't know what they're doing, either. They cannot answer those three questions. They are, for all strategic purposes, "human tools."
In my own company, my team is divided into two categories: those who can answer the three questions, and those who cannot. If I were choosing a successor, a new captain for the ship, do you think I would ever choose from the latter group?
A captain who doesn't know what assets they have, what their destination is, or what they're willing to sacrifice to get there is not a captain. They are a liability.
When you are a tool, there is a uniform standard. Left foot, right foot, "1-2-1, 1-2-1." When you are an architect, there is no standard. You are the one who decides the vision and the sacrifice.
Stop Mistaking "Experience" for "Lived Experience"
This is the most critical distinction in the AI era. AI has "experience." It has processed more data, read more books, and analyzed more code than any human ever will.
What it does not have is "lived experience."
Think of the first time you read a truly great book. The first time you got your driver's license and felt that rush of freedom. The first time you bought a home and obsessed over the design. That feeling—the joy, the fear, the anticipation, the struggle—that is the data AI cannot scrape.
An AI is like a numb worker, going through the motions. It can be "trained" on a billion hours of work, but it has never felt a single second of it. It has never done the work "with heart."
When you do not work "with heart," all your experience is just data. It is not wisdom.
This is why, when people ask me, "James, I've read all the books, I understand all the concepts, what do I do?" I know they don't understand at all. You cannot truly know what it's like to be a manager until you have been a manager—until you've had to make the hard calls, to feel the weight of your team's careers on your shoulders.
This is what the ancient philosophers called the "unity of knowing and doing." You only know as much as you have done. And you must do it "with heart," or it doesn't count. You're just competing with the AI.
You Are Not a Tool. Stop Competing in the Tool's Racetrack.
When I'm evaluating a person—for a partnership, for an investment, for a leadership role—I am not listening to them answer the three questions. An AI can give a great "answer."
Instead, I am listening to their story. I want to hear about their lived experiences, their struggles, their insights. Through that story, I can perceive what they have, what they want, and what they've been willing to sacrifice. Their true nature is revealed in their actions and their reflections on those actions, not in their self-proclamation.
When a venture capitalist is vetting a founding team, they can spot the "architect" in the room—the one who is the soul of the company, the one who can answer the three questions through their lived experience. Everyone else in that room, human or AI, is just a tool to help that architect achieve their vision.
The world is not forcing you to be a tool. It is not forcing you to compete in the same racetrack as the machine. You are choosing to do so.
Countless millennia ago, some apes chose to stay in the trees and perfect the art of being an ape. Others chose to stand up and walk away, to change the racetrack entirely.
No one is forcing you to stay in the trees. You are simply abandoning your human attribute by choice. It's time to stand up and walk away.
Mercury Technology Solutions: Accelerate Digitality.
