Too Stupid for Humans

February 8, 2026

Instead of complaining that AI will replace jobs performed by humans because machines are smarter than humans, why not consider that jobs have been made stupider and painful for humans? No wonder machines are better, as these jobs were made for them to start with.

What are stupid jobs?

Examples of stupid jobs abound.

Many jobs are using apps that imprison their users into procedures that are often failing to bring the expected outcome. People are forced to learn the idiosyncrasies of specific software products and convert their data into this only acceptable format. There was a time where software were built primarily according to customers' requirements. Today it often happens that users have to adjust their work to what the software enables them to do, and discard the rest.

A major problem comes from the fact that companies that provide this kind of software are giants that aim at taking over all the tasks performed within a company. They usually are successful at doing that, at the point that a company would not be able to operate without them.

In order to minimize risk taking, many companies ask their personnel to align to what is sometimes called "best practices", which is another word to designate the average way of doing things, without asking whether it fits the specific environment or not. Another way of considering this would be for a company to decide to distinguish itself from all others by inventing its original way of operating. This is generally speaking not happening.

Looking for information was done with search engines that were returning lists of links. The number of links returned was sometimes more than one million, making them impossible to process. People used to look at the first few ones, and wrote a synthesis of what they found. Now AI agents are doing this work automatically, and produce a reasonably well written report containing these findings. They are also more precise, as the prompts issued for queries can be more complex than just a list of words. The obfuscation of sources make it difficult to get a high of confidence on the results. It often means that a blind act of faith is implicit, where the results are considered valuable, regardless of any biases or partial view involved.

More generally, any task consisting in aggregating existing data into a common data set is made easier, but this is not as straightforward as it seems. Many pitfalls and traps exist in the process of integration, and an engine that exults self-confidence may have missed the main points without notice.

It is now possible to write pieces of code that already exist everywhere to perform a well-defined function, using a particular version of a computer language. Programmers and software engineers have more time to focus on more important fragments of the code. These new capabilities reduce the need for low-level programmers.

Companies spend time configuring software to perform automatic tasks, for example sending automatic notifications when certain conditions are met. These tasks often related to project management can easily be performed by robots. They won't make the outcomes more useful than when the same task is done by humans, but they will aggravate the situation by creating new notifications and distractions that are commonplace in today's work environment.

Applications for grants, job applications, or activity reports, meeting summaries, often must contain a certain number of criteria as they are now filtered by robots before being analyzed by humans. Humans are better at detecting what is original, unexpected. But as long as what is expected is conformity to existing norms, companies can continue aligning on average mediocrity using AI agents.

Handling customer service through predefined procedures using checkboxes is performed well by machines. The fact that many customers' issues remain unsolved may backfire later as it degrades the overall trust in the quality of the service performed by a company, but many companies are comfortable with this, as for now they are still enjoying cost savings.

Jobs become stupider

The lack of personal commitment in jobs is due to the constraints imposed by the software products, that rely on models where everything has been figured out in advance, and where the procedures have to be adapted to fit the requirements of the apps. At the beginning, it started with good intentions. Software companies tried to address common workflows that existed. But now, they are imposing these models as the only possible way to conduct work. This situation means that the creativity of the individuals who use these tools is reduced to practically zero. People lose any sense of commitment or personal engagement, as they are just following instructions given by software. They forget that these software products have been invented by other humans, and that the reason why they have to follow them is because they lose the ability to discuss how adequate these procedures are. In other words, they become powerless. Any thought they may have on improving the situation translated into purchasing another software that may seem a better fit, until it becomes as constraining as the previous one.

It is not so much that machines are smarter than humans, it's more that humans must operate machines that were made by humans that are more powerful than themselves, and therefore have to surrender their ability to perform a work to the best of their abilities into something where they are passive operators of tools that are lacking the ability to let them express themselves.

Eventually, those workers are transformed into robots, and the logical outcome of that process is that actual robots can eventually perform these tasks in a better way than them. They are not complaining, they do not handle tricky data that do not fit their expected patterns. They don't get sick. They do not stop working at night or during weekends.

In conclusion, yes, machines are smarter than humans when humans are expected to behave stupidly, or when they are trained to become stupid. But humans are not that stupid, as they suffer from being treated this way. When they will be able to express themselves, and liberate themselves from the narrow-minded ways of working, they may enjoy a new level of productivity and satisfaction.