01. What are people still needed for
Module 0 · Chapter 1
First chapter of Alles of (n)iets met AI. For everyone, and for everything that follows. Next time: when is something still yours.
What are people still needed for
This week you made something with AI. An email, a summary, a piece of text. It was quick and it was fine. And yet something nags at you: if this is so easy, what is my job now?
The sentence to remember
AI can make it solid and useful. You make it beautiful and fitting.
Most AI courses start with the buttons. We start with that question. The answer decides how you will use AI.
Vitruvius, an architect in Rome two thousand years ago, gave three words for a good building. Solid, useful, beautiful. Not one of the three. All three, or it is not a building but a shed.
Hold this week's piece of text up against them.
Solid
Will it still stand tomorrow? Can you use it again next month, even if the situation is slightly different?
Or was it a one-off from a chat window that you will never find again? Then you have built nothing. You have had a conversation.
Useful
Does it work for the person who receives it? Not whether it sounds clever. Whether the recipient can move forward with it.
Beautiful
The hardest word. It is also the quickest to be waved away. Vitruvius does not mean "pretty". He means: does it fit here, with these people, at this moment?
Is your eye for the recipient in it, your taste, your choice of what goes in and what stays out? That is the part that tells someone it came from you.
The division
AI can do solid and useful. It makes something reusable that works. It gets better at that every month.
Beautiful is something it cannot fill in for you. Not because the technology is too weak. Fitting only exists for someone who stands somewhere, with experience, a client and a point of view of their own. That is you.
That is what people are still needed for. Not for the dull work that is left over. For the part where the difference is made.
Four angles
The same subject, four ways in
Pick the angle that fits your question today. Each one stands on its own.
Why · philosophical
What is it worth if everyone can do it?
In 1998 every company bought a domain name and felt it was "doing something with the internet". The ones who made the difference had worked out what for, for whom and how. Vitruvius forces that question before you start. Speed alone is not quality.
How · methodical
Three questions, in this order.
Will this still stand tomorrow? Does it solve something for the person who receives it? Am I in it: my tone, my choices, my knowledge of the recipient? You can leave solid and useful to AI. Beautiful is where your work begins. Two out of three is not a pass.
What · data
Two blog posts, the same machine.
The first from a single prompt: smooth, correct, done in five minutes. The second on a recorded foundation with our tone, our clients and the words we never use. The first gets skimmed and forgotten. The second gets read and forwarded. The difference was underneath, not in the AI.
Conversation · conversational
What you will hear around you.
Colleague: "So AI is only allowed to do the boring work?" No, AI can do anything where you think the result matters more than the making. Manager: "What does this get us?" Room for the part clients choose you for. Client: "Was this made by AI?" By us, with AI helping. And to be fair: an internal memo does not need to be beautiful. You decide that, not the machine.
Do this today · fifteen minutes
Three tasks, three words.
Fifteen minutes, pen and paper.
Write down three tasks you did this week. An email, an analysis, a plan, a conversation.
Add one word to each: myself, with AI, or handed to AI.
Hold them up against Vitruvius. Was it solid? Useful? Beautiful? And were you in that third word, or could anyone have handed this in?
Keep the note. Next time we build on it.
Remember
AI can make it solid and useful. You make it beautiful and fitting.
Solid
A session is not a building. If it is gone tomorrow, you did not make it.
Useful
Does it work for the person who receives it? That is what counts, not whether it is clever.
Beautiful
Two blog posts, the same machine. One gets read. The difference was underneath.
Next time I'll ask you
Which of the three can AI not make for you, and why not?
Updated on 2026-10-26, version 3.0 · what changed
| Date | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-26 | Version 3.0: a heading per Vitruvius word, four angles with their own titles, Do this today as three steps with a call to action, Remember as three anchors with an image and the hook in order (HAAK), images in the style of the website and the OXP flyers | feedback from Luc |
| 2026-10-26 | Version 2.0: one line through the chapter, Remember as a narrative | feedback from Luc |
| 2026-10-26 | First version, merged from module 0 and the raw input | module 0 mens en machine, 05 ruwe input en nuances |
Chapter 1 of 26. Version 3.0, last revised 2026-10-26.
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