I was cleaning up my computer recently and found a piece of software called EasyConnect.
I stared at it for a long time.
What the hell is this?
After digging around, I finally remembered. Years ago, a friend remotely installed it to help me transfer a huge file. The job got done, the friend left, and the software stayed—sitting there for years.
Looking at the uninstall screen, I suddenly felt a wave of emotion.
A humanities PhD who has spent all these years in AI and NLP, and to this day, I still don't dare casually delete things from my computer.
Terminal gives me a headache.
sudo makes me nervous.
When I see a string of mysterious commands, my first reaction isn't to execute them—it's to find an engineer and ask:
"Bro, if I delete this, my computer won't explode, right?"
Thinking about it more, it's not just me.
There are a lot of people like this in the AI industry.
They studied literature, history, philosophy, linguistics in college.
They researched meaning, narrative, cognition, culture.
Then the times turned a corner, and somehow they all got swept into artificial intelligence.
Every day they're throwing around terms like:
Agent.
Token.
Context.
Embedding.
MCP.
RAG.
Talking like seasoned engineers.
But if you actually asked them to fix a network configuration themselves, they'd probably need to Google it for half an hour.
Sometimes it's absurd.
Our generation might be the first cohort like this in history.
In our heads, we're discussing AGI, consciousness, intelligence, the evolution of civilization.
In our hands, we're dealing with YAML, API keys, environment variables.
By day, we talk about the future of humanity.
By night, we're looking up why the service won't start.
By day, we ponder how AI will reshape social structures.
By night, we're researching which directory launchd is hiding in.
Living like schizophrenics.
But later I realized, this might not be a weakness.
Engineers are great at building ships.
Humanities people are great at asking where the ship should sail.
Engineers care whether the horsepower is enough.
Humanities people care whether the destination is right.
Maybe the most interesting thing about the AI era is right here.
More and more people who never wrote code are starting to program in natural language.
More and more people who never built systems are starting to have their own Agents.
More and more people who only ever wrote essays are now commanding a team of silicon-based workers.
Sure, they still fear deleting the wrong file.
Still worry about losing passwords.
Still can't read terminal error messages.
But that doesn't matter anymore.
Because something fascinating is happening in our era:
Machines are becoming more like engineers.
And engineers are becoming more like machines.
Meanwhile, those who originally studied language, stories, and people have suddenly become the best at communicating with AI.
At this thought, I suddenly felt at peace.
A humanities PhD who can't fix a computer, somehow surviving in the AI industry for all these years.
Sounds like a joke.
But think about it.
There seem to be more and more people like this in the industry.
---
The core punchline isn't really "I don't know IT."
It's this: the entire AI industry is forcing a group of people who never belonged to the engineering world to become half-engineers, while simultaneously turning engineers into people who think more and more like humanities majors.
That contrast captures something about our era.
---
A quick translation guide for friends outside tech:
**YAML** (Ya-muhl? Ya-mee? Nobody knows how to pronounce it): A configuration file. Its sole job is to tell the computer: "Here's what you're supposed to do."
**API Key**: The access card of the digital age. Lose it, and you're terrified someone stole it. Forget it, and you can't get in.
**Environment Variable**: Programmers' favorite hiding place. Also the place programmers most easily forget they hid something.
**sudo**: Literally means "please temporarily grant me god-level permissions."
Translated into human:
"I know what I'm doing."
In reality, most people typing sudo have no idea what they're doing.
**launchd**: The head eunuch of the Mac system.
Responsible for arranging all programs:
When you wake up.
When you work.
When you work in secret.
When you work in the background.
Who resurrects you after you die.
Many Mac users go their entire lives without knowing it exists.
Until the day a program refuses to be deleted.
**ls**: The most commonly used command in the Linux world.
Its function is roughly equivalent to:
"Let me take a peek at what's in here."
Programmers type it hundreds of times a day.
**Agent**:
Used to be called an artificial intelligence agent.
Now it's increasingly like a digital employee.
Its defining characteristics:
Very enthusiastic about working.
Very enthusiastic about making mistakes.
And especially talented at turning a five-minute task into two hours.
Which is why some in the industry affectionately call it:
The Electronic Intern.
by Tuya
