🧱 When the Ladder Disappears: AI, Capital, and the Crisis Facing Society's Builders

Posted on April 23, 2025 • Tags: AI, automation, labor, tech ethics, economy, future of work

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👀 I’ve seen this before.

Back in the early 2000s, I watched as jobs in tech support were offshored from Symantec to a Center of Excellence in India. The promise from leadership was that only frontline support would be moved. But I saw the writing on the wall. If the first rung of the ladder exists somewhere else, how are you supposed to grow new talent here? Who climbs to the second or third rung if they never touch the first?

Today, that same pattern is returning—not with shipping containers or call centers, but with Agentic AI and initiatives like OpenAI’s A-SWE. The new pitch to executives is eerily familiar: automate the entry-level, save on cost, scale faster. It’s the same lesson in a new wrapper. But it seems only those of us on the ground remember how much was lost the first time around.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t fear of change. This is recognition of a systemic blind spot. AI will absolutely change how we build software. But in the rush to “future-proof” companies, we’re erasing the very pathways that made these companies possible. When junior engineers are replaced by automated agents, where will the next generation of senior engineers come from? What happens when the base of the pyramid is hollowed out?

This is bigger than tech. It’s a structural issue that echoes across every industry AI touches.

⚙️ The Automation Reboot

I explained it to my son, a junior engineer, like this: Society is made up of three groups.

1. The builders — the working class, the people who create the world we all live in.
2. The idea people — inventors, artists, problem solvers, often emerging from group 1 because they know the pain points firsthand.
3. The capitalists — the ones who fund ideas and scale them to market, often removed from the daily experience of either of the first two groups.

Right now, AI is making group 3 giddy with excitement. Group 2 is being selectively elevated, especially if they know how to wield AI to produce more, faster. But group 1? They’re being told they’re expendable. That they’re a cost center. That they’re next.

And that’s a dangerous lie.

Because society doesn’t work without its builders. The infrastructure breaks. The culture frays. The economy—no matter how efficient—has no customers left to serve.

🚨 The Real Cost of “Efficiency”

We’ve seen this movie before. First in manufacturing. Then in support and services. Now in software.

Each time, the story was the same: we’ll do more with less.
Each time, the ladder got shorter. Or disappeared entirely.

And each time, it’s the builders who were left behind.

“This is fine.” – Capitalism, probably

🤝 Still Building, Still Believing

If we’re serious about building a future with AI, then let’s build it for everyone.

• Design systems that empower entry-level contributors
• Keep the ladder sturdy, not sawed off for quarterly gains
• Listen to those who’ve lived this cycle before

We don’t fear the future.
But we refuse to abandon the people who built the present.

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💬 What do you think? Have you seen this pattern in your industry? Let’s talk about it.