The "Human API": Why Your Most Valuable Skill is Now Your Biggest Liability.
September 8, 2025
I've been thinking about this a lot. The disruption is here, and it's not about 'losing your job.' It's about your entire role becoming obsolete. This is the shift from "Doer" to "Commander." And you have to choose a side.
The conversation about AI and jobs is shallow and usually dystopian, it seems like we’re underexposed to positive information. I keep hearing people ask, "Will AI take my job?"
I think that's the wrong question.
The real question we should be asking is, "Will AI make my entire role obsolete?" For millions of people, the answer is a hard yes.
By 2030, any job that is fundamentally a high-priced "Human API" will be automated. What's a Human API? It's any role that takes a complex but repeatable input, follows a process, and produces a predictable output.
The old playbook valued Doers: people who were experts at executing a process.
The new playbook values Commanders: people who are experts at defining an outcome and commanding a team of AI agents to handle the execution.
Part 1: The Roles on the Chopping Block (The "Doer" Playbook)
These roles will not just disappear overnight. That's not how these shifts work. Instead, their value will be driven to zero, fast. It's a process of commoditization. Think about it: when an AI can perform 90% of a role, the 10% of human "oversight" required becomes a low-paid, low-leverage task. The "expert" who used to charge $200/hour is now competing with a $20/month API. Their entire business model is collapsing. They will become commoditized, low-paid "AI operators" rather than high-value strategists.
The "Human API" Roles
# | Role | The "Old" Job (The "Human API") | Why It's Obsolete |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Data Analyst | Spending 40 hours in a spreadsheet to find a trend and another 10 hours building a PowerPoint about it. | Why would you pay someone to do that when an AI agent can analyze 10 million rows, find correlations you'd miss, and write the full report in 30 seconds? |
2 | The "Boilerplate" Developer | Taking a spec from a senior dev and writing boilerplate code for front-end components, database schemas, or API routes. | This is the grunt work that Vibe Coding was born to eliminate. Why hire five junior devs when a Commander can command an AI to generate the entire application's foundation in an afternoon? |
3 | The Project Manager | Being a human API for Asana. Sending "just checking in" emails, nagging for status updates, and moving digital sticky notes. | This is a low-leverage task. AI agents can monitor Slack, identify blockers, and autonomously follow up. The administrative half of "management" is gone. |
4 | The Paralegal / Legal Researcher | Billable hours spent sifting through case law and 10,000-page discovery documents to find a single precedent. | An AI with a RAG system can read that entire library in seconds. Legal strategy remains a high-value human skill. Legal research is now an AI task. |
5 | The "WordPress" Developer | Charging a client $5,000 to spend a month fighting with a 20-year-old, bloated blogging platform and 15 clunky plugins. | This model is broken. Why fight with 15 clunky plugins when you can "Vibe Code" a superior, faster, custom-built site in a day and deploy it on a modern platform like WebCore? |
6 | The Ride-Share & Delivery Driver | A gig transporting people or food, coordinated by an app like Uber or DoorDash. | Human drivers are the biggest cost and liability for these platforms. Waymo, Cruise, and Tesla are in a race to deploy autonomous fleets. This is not an "if," it is a "when." |
7 | The L1/L2 Customer Support Agent | Answering chats and calls to reset passwords, track orders, or handle basic complaints. | An AI agent can do this 24/7, with zero wait time, in any language, and be empowered to execute the solution (like processing a refund) on the spot. |
8 | The Bookkeeper | Manually entering invoices, matching purchase orders, and reconciling statements. The definition of a "human API." | AI can now read a PDF, understand its context, match it to a PO, and enter it into the accounting software. This entire workflow is being automated. |
9 | The Stock Photographer | Creating or finding generic visual assets for blogs, ads, or social media posts. | Why search a stock library for 20 minutes for a "good enough" image when you can command an AI to generate the perfect, custom, royalty-free image in 10 seconds? |
10 | The Warehouse Picker | Walking miles of aisles to find an item, scan it, and put it in a box. | This is a physics problem, and robots are better at physics. Amazon's warehouses are the blueprint. Computer vision and robotics can pick and pack 24/7 without error. |
11 | The "Content" Teacher | The teacher who acts as a "Human API" for information, delivering the same standard lecture every semester and grading 100 simple-answer papers. | Why would a student listen to a generic lecture when an AI can be their 24/7, infinitely patient, personalized tutor? The "lecturer" role is a commodity. |
12 | The "Generic" Coach | The coach who sells 1-hour sessions to provide basic accountability, generic advice ("set your goals"), and foundational motivation. | An AI agent can do 80% of this better. It can be a 24/7 accountability partner in your pocket and provide instant, high-quality advice. |
Part 2: The Roles Being Created (The "Commander" Playbook)
This is not a story of doom. It is a story of leverage. The "Doers" are being replaced by a smaller number of high-value "Commanders."
The "Commander" Roles
# | New Role | The "New" Job (The "Commander" Playbook) |
|---|---|---|
1 | The AI System Commander | This is the role you should be stepping into. This is the person who designs the entire system. They don't just prompt; they command. They define the strategic "vibe" and orchestrate AI agents to build it. |
2 | The AI Agent Integrator | A specialist in making different AI agents "talk" to each other. They build the "digital assembly line." They are the plumber for the new AI-powered internet. |
3 | The AI "Vibe Tuner" | A blend of creative writer, psychologist, and brand strategist. Their job is to take a generic AI and give it a unique, proprietary "vibe." Your unique personality is your only moat. |
4 | The AI Quality Guardian | The evolution of QA. A highly-skilled auditor who stops the AI from doing something stupid, biased, or "brittle." They are the adult in the room who "approves" the AI's final decision. |
5 | The "AI-First" Platform Builder | This is what I'm doing. Building the platforms (like my own WebCore) that integrate the AI generators, the CMS, and the deployment pipelines. This is the trillion-dollar opportunity. |
6 | The Remote Fleet Operator | As self-driving cars take over, we will need fleets of remote "pilots" in command centers to take control when an autonomous vehicle gets "stuck." |
7 | The AI Interaction Designer | The evolution of the UX/UI Designer. This person doesn't just design buttons and screens. They design conversations. They script the AI's personality and empathy. |
8 | The AI-Assisted Financial Strategist | The evolution of the bookkeeper. With data entry automated, this person's job is purely strategic, advising founders on cash flow, burn rate, and financial models. |
9 | The Synthetic Media Art Director | A master of multiple AI tools (Midjourney, Sora) and traditional tools (Photoshop). They blend AI-generated assets with human taste to create entire visual campaigns. |
10 | The Robotics & Automation Technician | The high-skilled evolution of the "warehouse worker." This is the on-site engineer who services, maintains, and optimizes the physical robots and automation systems. |
11 | The Learning Experience Architect | The evolution of the "teacher." With information delivery and grading automated, the human's job is 100% "Thinker." They design curriculum, facilitate Socratic discussions, and mentor students. |
12 | The Elite Transformation Coach | The evolution of the "coach." With basic accountability automated, the human's value shifts to the 1% of work: transformation. This is the $10,000/month mentor you hire for their wisdom and network. |
Conclusion: Stop Being a Doer. Start Being a Commander.
I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've come to a conclusion: the dystopian view is a failure of imagination.
This isn't a story of replacement. This is a story of liberation.
The "Doer" in all of us, the part bogged down by spreadsheets, boilerplate code, and repetitive tasks, is being automated. This is not a threat; it is an unburdening. It is setting the "Commander" in you free.
It's one thing to read about this shift. It's another to lead it.
The new world will not value people who can do a repeatable task. It will value people who can think of a new one. It will value your taste, your strategy, and your courage to command a team of AI agents to build something new.
I'm not just writing about this. I'm building the playbook.
I'm planning a live, hands-on webinar to show you exactly how to command an AI to build your own custom applications.
No theory, just building.
If you are ready to make the shift from "Doer" to "Commander," follow me here on LinkedIn.
That's where I'll be announcing the dates and dropping the registration link first.
You are not competing with an AI agent. You are being given an AI army.
It's time to learn the commands.