Who's Teaching the Juniors?
It's early in the morning when the first rays of sunlight find their way into the poorly darkened bedroom of a young blacksmith. After one final stretch, he gets up, walks across the creaking wooden floor to the forge, and shovels coal into the furnace. Within minutes, a bright, warm fire is burning. That part, he can manage.
But the rest of the tools, passed down through generations as part of the forge? He has no idea how to use them. Some things, like a hammer, are obvious enough. But all those more advanced instruments his father wielded so effortlessly? A complete mystery.
His father can no longer teach him. Months ago, he suddenly vanished, along with the baker, the farrier, the butcher, and the greengrocer. Just gone. Poof. Their would-be successors left behind in bewilderment, at precisely the moment in their lives when they needed that lost wisdom most.
Back to the present. One company after another evangelizes the wonders of artificial intelligence. An apprentice, a junior, at a fraction of the cost. Twenty of those talents, nearly free, with only a handful of experienced hands needed to steer them. The seniors.
The future is nothing but bright. Hooray.
The Seniority Paradox is real. The junior is no longer needed, the seniors will handle it. That's what they say. But those same companies seem to have already forgotten that today's seniors were once juniors themselves. Juniors who fought their way through difficult problems. Who reached their current position through trial and error. Who became the seniors of today by learning from their mistakes.
Just like a real blacksmith who learned what all those tools were for from his father. The baker who learned how to get the best bread out of the oven. The greengrocer who passed on to the next generation which soil grew the finest fruit. The mass disappearance of the seniors is coming. Not as a modern fairy tale. For real.
Poof. With no spell to bring them back.
Leaving the juniors standing there, in doubt, wondering what all those tools are actually for.