A simple column on AI sparked an unexpected storm on LinkedIn. Not because he attacked trades, but because he touched a sensitive point.
The Day LinkedIn Burned: Anatomy of a Revealing Misunderstanding
There are sometimes texts which, without having sought it, act as a revealer. They do not just trigger a debate, but a tear, a clear fracture at the precise point where the fears, frustrations, certainties and underground tensions of an entire sector meet.
The column that I published in the Journal du Net was not intended to cause a fire. It was intended to be a simple, almost clinical reflection on what artificial intelligence really transforms: not jobs, but the perception we have of their usefulness. What I had not anticipated was the violence of the reactions, the immediate polarization, the personal attacks, and, in reverse, the dozens of private messages from managers, CEOs, marketing managers, who perfectly understood the objective of the text.
The imposture trial: a debate that hides the real subject
The majority of outraged reactions on LinkedIn were based on a misinterpretation. Some readers have projected onto the text a thesis that I have never defended: the idea that professions are useless, decorative, “good to replace”. This collective fantasy, this almost Pavlovian panic, testifies less to a fundamental disagreement than to a deep anxiety. AI, through its speed of execution, through its ability to reformulate, summarize, synthesize, attacks not professions, but comfort zones. It shakes up routines, it erases the facade, it exposes blind spots. It is precisely this exhibition that is disturbing. Not because it destroys professions, but because it imposes, for the first time, a transparency that many have never had to face.
The wrong question: “Does AI threaten the professions?”
This debate is sterile because it is based on an obsolete imagination: a vision where a profession would be a fixed entity, an immutable block, a skill in itself. However, the current transformation does not come to crush professions, but to reveal the gaps between what a profession is supposed to be and the way in which it is sometimes exercised. Editors continue to exist, but empty writing is no longer enough. Translators remain essential, but rough translation no longer has its place. Graphic designers retain all their legitimacy, but the interchangeable aesthetic no longer convinces. The question is therefore not whether AI replaces: it distinguishes. It distinguishes the real profession from the apparent profession. It distinguishes added value from simple execution. She distinguishes constructed expertise from mimicked competence. It’s not a revolution against professions: it’s a revolution against superficiality.
The other side of the debate: the massive support behind the scenes
What the public comments do not show, what the visible reactions completely obscure, are the private messages that are pouring in. Leaders write to me, not to applaud the controversy, but to validate the reality of the observation. They talk about complicated recruitment, missions where the real level did not correspond to the displayed level, freelancers who delivered out of habit, agencies who produced automatically. They do not rejoice in the situation, they observe it. And they all describe the same phenomenon: since the arrival of AI, it has become much more difficult to hide the absence of method, vision, strategic understanding. The varnish comes off, the surface cracks, the so-called “professionalism” reveals what it was hiding. AI does not replace: it clarifies.
The point that many refused to face
Behind the noise, behind the outrage, lies a much deeper issue. This debate is not a debate about technology. It is a debate about individual responsibility. For years, many have been locked into vague positions, ambiguous missions, poorly defined roles, created by organizations that needed to fill boxes, occupy spaces, feed an internal structure without demanding real accountability on the value produced. These professions were not decorative in essence: they became so for lack of framework, lack of requirements, lack of clear direction. AI arrives, and suddenly, what was bearable, acceptable, tolerated, is no longer so. Technology, by accelerating execution, imposes a merciless examination: what, in my job, is true skill, and what is habit?
The fundamental question: what does AI reveal about us?
What this controversy shows is our complicated relationship with value. The fear does not come from AI, it comes from what it highlights. It sends everyone to a radical question: what can I do that the machine cannot do? For many, this question is violent, and it is even more so because they are not responsible for having avoided it. Organizations have created comfort zones, shelters, buffer roles. They produced functions that occupied without demanding. They created refuges where people survived without confronting their own usefulness. Today, it is this refuge that is crumbling, not through the fault of the employees who work there, but through the transformation of an entire ecosystem.
What the controversy really says about our professional future
If this debate is so lively, if the reactions are so disproportionate, it is because the issue goes well beyond the question of threatened professions. What this controversy reveals is that AI does not force us to change professions: it requires us to re-inhabit it. It requires companies to redefine expectations. It forces professionals to regain mastery, method, and deep understanding of their role. It forces us to move away from automatism and return to intention, analysis, and thought. AI is not the enemy of professions: it is the enemy of the void.
Conclusion: a useful controversy, a necessary debate
What happened on LinkedIn is not a simple episode of tension. It is a sign, a revealing tension, a moment when a professional ecosystem finds itself facing its mirror. Yes, AI is transformative. Yes, it is destabilizing. But it also provides a rare opportunity: that of rebuilding value, restoring meaning, reaffirming coherence. Through this debate, what we see is not the disappearance of professions, but the possibility of reinventing them. Not by protecting them artificially, but by strengthening them where they draw their legitimacy: from real expertise, detailed understanding, strategic thinking.
