If a problem can be solved without AI, does AI actually make it better?
Source: Dev.to
Main Argument
I recently had an interesting conversation with an investor. I was explaining a very concrete technical problem and the solution behind it. At some point he asked: “Won’t AI solve this in a few years? If so, doesn’t that make your solution irrelevant?”
That question stuck with me — because my instinctive reaction was: why would that make it irrelevant?
If a problem can be solved without AI, that solution is always:
- faster
- cheaper – or zero cost
- deterministic
- easier to reason about
- easier to trust
In other words, it has fewer moving parts. Using AI to solve a deterministic problem feels a bit like using ChatGPT as a calculator. Yes, it can tell you that 2 + 2 = 4, but the calculator still wins — every time.
I’m starting to think that the real winners won’t be “AI‑powered everything”, but systems where AI is used only where the problem is actually probabilistic or ambiguous.
Discussion
Do non‑AI solutions become less valuable just because AI could solve the same problem? Or do simple, deterministic solutions actually become more important in an AI‑heavy world? I’m curious how others see this.