Lede
The funniest part of the AI jobs sermon is how every major speech drags out ‘plumbers are safe’, as if the speaker has got a cursed stopcock at home.
Hermit Off Script
I keep hearing the same holy sermon: “Don’t worry, plumbers won’t be replaced soon.” Bloody hell. It makes me think half the AI godfathers, godmothers, and developers have got plumbing trauma at home or work. Here’s a radical idea. Buy better plumbing gear that does not break every five minutes, so you do not need a plumber every time. And here’s what I think is irreplaceable for a long, long time: writing novels and meaningful stories. That needs real experience, not some virtual theme park version of life. You cannot describe wind touching leaves, that whisper in trees, by pretending you felt it through a headset. You can clone it. You can steal words and ideas, like scam AI does with pretraining these dumb models. But until the first quantum brain android is born, something like Bicentennial Man, nothing is close to human creativity. That creativity dragged us out of monkey-mind ages and built revolutions and art. So take that, you plumbers, developers, and managers of the AI, AGI, ASI race. Right now you are the plumbers of AI, not the other way round. No one wants to be only a plumber because the job is safe, but every one of us should learn programming from primary school to university, because this is the future. Your “tools” will not replace all jobs. They will replace the people who cannot repair the tool chain. Stop fooling the working class and calling it intelligence.
What does not make sense
- We are told plumbers are the poster boys for “safe work”, yet the same people buy the cheapest fittings and act shocked when they leak.
- The AI crowd sells “job replacement” like it is gravity, then quietly hires humans to babysit prompts, data, and failures.
- The loudest doom talk comes from people who cannot fix a tap washer, but still want to redesign civilisation.
- We pretend creativity is “just patterns”, then get angry when the patterns feel empty.
- We call it progress when everyone must learn code just to keep a job that was meant to be made easier.
Sense check / The numbers
- OECD estimates 14% of existing jobs could disappear due to automation in the next 15 to 20 years, and another 32% are likely to change radically as tasks are automated. (OECD Employment Outlook 2019 PDF) [OECD]
- On 2 December 2025, Reuters reported that in Britain “one in six” employers expect AI tools to let them reduce headcount in the next 12 months, citing a CIPD survey. (2 December 2025) [Reuters]
- The Writers Guild of America says a company cannot require a writer to use AI, and must disclose if materials given to the writer incorporate AI-generated content. (WGA guidance page) [WGA]
- Bicentennial Man released in 1999 and runs 132 minutes, with an estimated budget around $100 million and worldwide gross about $87.4 million. (IMDb and reference listings) [IMDb]
The sketch
Scene 1: The Leak Test
Panel: A sleek AI robot points at a dripping pipe. A human holds a wrench.
AI: “Plumbers are safe.”
Human: “So are you, mate. You can’t even grip a spanner.”
Scene 2: The Subscription Tap
Panel: A kitchen tap with a card reader bolted on. A pop-up reads “Upgrade to stop leaking.”
Tap: “Pay monthly for dryness.”
Human: “Even my sink has a pricing tier. Brilliant.”
Scene 3: The Great Creativity Demo
Panel: A headset shows a perfect forest simulation. Outside the window, real trees bend in the wind.
AI: “Authentic whispering leaves.”
Human: “That’s a fan noise loop. Go outside.”
What to watch, not the show
- Cheap hardware culture: buy flimsy, call a tradesperson, repeat.
- Incentives: fear sells. Calm maintenance does not.
- Corporate headcount maths: AI is a bargaining chip as much as a tool.
- Skills policy: we train people for exams, then act surprised they cannot adapt.
- Creative labour rights: who gets paid, credited, and protected when tools remix culture.
The Hermit take
Stop suggesting that the plumber won’t be replaced.
Ask why the rich keep selling “replacement” while the rest of us keep fixing their mess.
Keep or toss
Keep / Toss
Keep the tools that help real work and real learning.
Toss the doom sermons and the class snobbery, and start investing in skills, maintenance, and honest limits.
Sources
- Bicentennial Man film details (reference listing):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicentennial_Man_%28film%29 - Bicentennial Man (1999) credits and box office:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182789/ - Reuters on Britain employers and AI headcount expectations (2 Dec 2025):
https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/fearing-ai-job-losses-some-young-workers-britain-shift-towards-skilled-trades-2025-12-02/ - OECD Employment Outlook 2019 (automation shares 14% and 32%):
https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2019/04/oecd-employment-outlook-2019_0d35ae00/9ee00155-en.pdf - WGA guidance on artificial intelligence (writer protections):
https://www.wga.org/contracts/know-your-rights/artificial-intelligence
