Feeling sad about AI / 对人工智能感到悲伤

September 11, 2026 [Programming, Rust, Tech, Videos] 2026年9月11日 [编程，Rust，科技，视频]

This video doesn’t contain any code: feel free to skip it if you like, but either way I’m going to try to keep it short, so see you on the other side :-). Also, this video isn’t about the ethics of AI - you can read how I feel about that in my article Why I don’t use AI. And it’s not about whether AI “works”. It’s about how I’m feeling, and some reasons for why I’m feeling like that, and some hopefully hopeful conclusions. 这段视频里没有任何代码：如果你愿意，可以随意跳过，但我会尽量保持简短，所以我们稍后再见 :-)。此外，这段视频也不是关于人工智能的伦理问题——你可以在我的文章《为什么我不使用人工智能》中了解我的看法。它也不是关于人工智能是否“有效”。它是关于我的感受，以及我产生这种感受的一些原因，还有一些希望能带来希望的结论。

Feeling sad 感到悲伤

AI has been making me sad for quite a while now. Really sad, out of proportion with how much AI has materially affected my life. Sad enough actually, that the sadness is the main effect that AI has had on my life, making it harder for me to deal with everyday life and be a good spouse, parent, friend, colleague. Obviously, AI is a potential threat to my livelihood and career, especially if I continue to refuse to use it, but I don’t think that explains quite how sad I’ve felt. 人工智能让我感到悲伤已经有一段时间了。这种悲伤非常强烈，与人工智能对我生活产生的实际影响不成比例。事实上，这种悲伤已经成为了人工智能对我生活产生的主要影响，让我更难应对日常生活，也更难成为一个好的伴侣、父母、朋友和同事。显然，人工智能对我生计和职业生涯构成了潜在威胁，尤其是如果我继续拒绝使用它的话，但我认为这并不能完全解释我为何感到如此悲伤。

Disrespect 不被尊重

I think I’ve felt sad because of the disrespect. For most of my life I have loved programming: I’ve made it my hobby, my work, my identity. I made it my way of proving I have value, because I can be good at something, and improve at something, and it is useful, and beautiful: you can make cool things, and those things can be made in ways that are like craft or art or science or Maths. And if you can do it, people think you’re clever, and respect you. 我想我感到悲伤是因为那种不被尊重的感觉。在我生命的大部分时间里，我都热爱编程：我把它当作我的爱好、我的工作、我的身份。我把它作为证明自己有价值的方式，因为我可以擅长某事，并在某事上有所进步，而且它既有用又美妙：你可以创造出很酷的东西，而这些东西的制作方式就像工艺、艺术、科学或数学一样。如果你能做到这一点，人们会认为你很聪明，并尊重你。

Now some people in our industry are telling us that programming is obsolete, that we are dinosaurs, and the only exciting or viable career path is to move on from programming, the thing I love, to paying them to rent programming from their machine, because it’s a commodity now. The thing I love; the thing I made my identity. The thing that earns me the respect I am so desperate for. 现在，我们行业里的一些人告诉我们，编程已经过时了，我们是恐龙，唯一令人兴奋或可行的职业道路就是放弃我所热爱的编程，转而向他们付费，从他们的机器那里租用编程服务，因为它现在只是一种商品。我所热爱的事物；我以此为身份的事物。那个为我赢得了我极度渴望的尊重的事物。

I know a lot of people could be watching this and thinking, “where were you when they disrespected me?” How much respect is given to the work of farmers or nurses or drivers or parents or carers or teachers or hospitality workers or cleaners or car-washers or so many other people? I know, I am late to the party, but I’ve arrived now. It was a shock to me that bosses were so keen to ditch people like me and replace us with an imitation. How naive I was, and how self-centred. So that’s why I’ve been sad. But I want to move on and try to provide some hope. 我知道很多人看到这里可能会想：“当他们不尊重我的时候，你在哪里？”农民、护士、司机、父母、护理人员、教师、酒店服务员、清洁工、洗车工或其他许多人的工作得到了多少尊重？我知道，我醒悟得太晚了，但我现在已经意识到了。老板们如此急切地想要抛弃像我这样的人，并用仿制品来取代我们，这让我感到震惊。我是多么天真，多么以自我为中心。这就是我感到悲伤的原因。但我想要继续前进，并尝试提供一些希望。

I’ve got three people in mind, who I’d like to encourage: myself, people watching my videos for the love of coding, and people watching them to learn, to build their career. Let’s talk to me first. 我心里想到了三类人，我想鼓励他们：我自己，那些因为热爱编程而观看我视频的人，以及那些为了学习和建立职业生涯而观看视频的人。让我们先对自己说几句。

To myself 对自己

Andy, the first thing you need to understand is that they can’t take your love of programming away from you. You love it. You just love it: it excites you, it calms you, it gives you a creative outlet, it satisfies you. That’s a God-given thing about you that they can’t take away. They also can’t take away the fact that you are quite good at it, and can improve. Enjoy it. Don’t waste your time and burn your creativity caring about receiving respect from people who don’t deserve any respect from you. 安迪，你首先需要明白的是，他们无法夺走你对编程的热爱。你热爱它。你就是热爱它：它让你兴奋，让你平静，为你提供了一个创造性的出口，让你感到满足。这是上帝赋予你的特质，他们无法夺走。他们也无法改变你很擅长编程且能够不断进步的事实。享受它吧。不要浪费你的时间，也不要为了那些不值得你尊重的人的尊重而消耗你的创造力。

To the code lovers 致代码爱好者

Now, for people watching for the love of coding, the message is the same: they can’t take it away from you. Just enjoy it. If you like watching videos about coding, encourage the people making them, and you might just supply enough energy that they are able to continue. 现在，对于那些因为热爱编程而观看视频的人，信息是一样的：他们无法从你手中夺走这份热爱。尽情享受吧。如果你喜欢看关于编程的视频，请鼓励那些制作视频的人，你或许就能提供足够的能量，让他们能够坚持下去。

To the learners 致学习者

For people watching to learn: don’t listen to people who say this skill is obsolete. Let me be clear here: even if the highly optimistic predictions about AI are true, we are going to need a lot of code, and the people who understand how it works are going to be very, very useful. 对于那些为了学习而观看视频的人：不要听信那些说这项技能已经过时的人的话。我在这里明确一点：即使关于人工智能的那些高度乐观的预测是真的，我们也依然需要大量的代码，而那些理解代码运作原理的人将会非常有价值。

First, the type of thinking you learn by coding is going to be incredibly useful, even in a future where that thinking is applied to wider-scale problems. Training your brain to create complex systems, analyse them, remodel them, debug them is going to make you useful, and employable. 首先，你通过编程学到的思维方式将极其有用，即使在未来这种思维被应用于更大规模的问题时也是如此。训练你的大脑去创建复杂系统、分析它们、重构它们、调试它们，这将使你变得有用，并具备就业竞争力。

Second, the knowledge of how code actually works is going to remain useful. Did we stop understanding machine code when we wrote compilers? No! People have jobs writing compilers, and their understanding of machine code and pipelines and caches and locality and loads of stuff I don’t understand is way deeper than anyone had when compilers were invented! 其次，关于代码实际运作原理的知识将始终有用。我们在编写编译器时停止理解机器码了吗？没有！人们依然从事着编写编译器的工作，他们对机器码、流水线、缓存、局部性以及许多我都不理解的东西的理解，远比编译器发明时任何人的理解都要深刻！

I have skin in the game here myself: two of my kids are learning programming and heading towards potential programming careers. Despite my deep sadness about the changes in my industry, I have no worries about them learning non-AI-powered coding at university and school - I am convinced it will set them up for whatever the world looks like over the next few decades. 我自己也身处其中：我的两个孩子正在学习编程，并朝着潜在的编程职业发展。尽管我对行业的变化感到深深的悲伤，但我并不担心他们在大学和学校学习非人工智能驱动的编程——我坚信，无论未来几十年世界变成什么样，这都将为他们打下坚实的基础。

Love to you 给你们的爱

So that’s all I have to say. If you are feeling some of the confusion, fear or sadness that I know many of us are feeling, I hope it might help a bit. Let me know on Mastodon (@andybalaam@mastodon.social) or via a comment on my blog, or under the video. 这就是我想说的全部。如果你也感受到了我知道我们许多人正在感受的困惑、恐惧或悲伤，我希望这能有所帮助。请在 Mastodon (@andybalaam@mastodon.social) 上告诉我，或者通过我的博客评论，或在视频下方留言。

Love to you: you have massive, massive value, and you deserve respect, as you are today. Whether you can code or do anything else is irrelevant. (Yes, I’m talking to myself again.) Love to you. 给你们的爱：你们拥有巨大的、巨大的价值，你们理应得到尊重，就以你们今天的样子。无论你是否会编程或做其他任何事情，这都不重要。（是的，我又在对自己说话了。）给你们的爱。