I originally thought AI was here to liberate humanity.
As early as 1930, economist Keynes predicted in “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”: With technological progress, humans would only need to work 15 hours a week by 2030.
It turns out that human imagination is still too poor.
I am optimistic about the future of AI, but Openclaw has been a bit too popular recently.
It’s a little scary how popular it is.
Some people even spend 500 yuan to install the free, open-source Openclaw, and the service providers earn millions of yuan a month.
This reminds me that back in 2024, when ChatGPT was just gaining popularity, “AI Godfather” Li Yizhou raked in half a small target with a 199 yuan AI novice course.
But his slogan was “If you don’t buy my course, you will be eliminated by those who understand AI.”
Did he teach any core technology? No. He wasn’t selling knowledge at all.
As long as he can accurately grasp the helplessness of ordinary people in the face of a technological revolution, and use a set of inferior shell tools, he can harvest leeks.
Today, in 2026, although Li Yizhou is a thing of the past, the demand is always there, and the market is always there.
Now they have started selling Agent deployment, selling OpenClaw practical courses, and selling the secret of “teaching you how to use AI to raise crayfish”.
The essence is still the old “Gold Rush Effect”.
Very few people actually found gold, but those who sold high-priced mineral water and inferior shovels at the crossroads had already made a fortune.
The winner takes all, not only to harvest your money, but also to ridicule you.
Always anxious, always being harvested, always tearful.
“Bro, didn’t you tell me that AI was used to improve efficiency? How come you’re busier after getting into AI? You don’t sleep all night, you don’t watch Douyin, you don’t watch TV shows, you don’t play King of Glory, and you keep talking about Skills, Mcp, OpenClaw, I can’t even tell, are you using AI, or is AI using you?”
In the end, looking back, you will finally discover two truths:
First, your anxiety has fattened a group of people selling shovels;
Second, after all the calculations, humans are still relatively cheap.
There are three reasons under this logic.
1) Humans can provide “emotional value”.
Anthropologist David Graeber pointed out in “Bullshit Jobs” that modern society is filled with a large number of jobs that only require performance and patching.
I think before considering whether you will be replaced by artificial intelligence, you should first consider whether what you are doing is a Bullshit Job.
As employees, humans provide a comprehensive service that includes emotional buffering and obedience to authority.
The boss pays you, and a large part of it is buying “domination rights”.
2) Humans can take the blame and go to jail.
The social system is built on a system of accountability.
AI cannot replace lawyers in court, cannot replace securities firms in signing prospectuses, cannot replace financial personnel in stamping account books, it cannot do this and that. Once something goes wrong, the entire business chain needs a specific “person” who can be fired, sued, or even sent to prison. Code does not bear legal responsibility.
The boundaries of law and morality determine that AI can only be a tool, while humans must be the bearers of responsibility.
3) The hidden cost of computing power is very high.
When you really want to run a complete project flow with advanced models (such as top-tier large models from abroad), the consumption fee of Tokens, the API call fee, and the server maintenance fee, add up to definitely not a small amount.
In contrast, a fresh graduate with a monthly salary of three or four thousand, who is available at any time, brings their own food, and can also self-PUA, is simply too cost-effective.
What do you think it takes to run a top-tier large model?
A constant temperature and humidity dust-free computer room, tens of thousands of graphics cards that cost hundreds of thousands of yuan, the terrifying electricity consumption of an entire town, expensive liquid cooling systems to cool down…
Every Token is real money.
But what about a young person with a higher education?
A one-square-meter workstation, a computer that can light up the screen, and a monthly salary of a few thousand yuan.
He can rely on the carbon water takeout of twenty or thirty yuan a day, in a rented house without air conditioning and heating, automatically and continuously operate for you for 10 to 14 hours.
If he gets sick, TA will even spend money to go to the hospital to fix himself, and then come back with the medical record to continue working, and at the same time feel sorry for delaying the progress of the work.
In order to eat the big pie drawn, they work overtime without pay, stay up all night, and give up their personal life on weekends. Capital doesn’t even need to whip them from behind, the donkey will grind the mill itself.
Most importantly, in order to avoid being eliminated, TA will also spend money to learn AI to help improve efficiency, so that one person can do the work of three people.
Really.
Tokens are too expensive, still use people, people are durable and cheap.
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