Altogether leveling: When everyone’s powerful with AI, what makes you unique?

Recently, I’ve been casually watching Solo Leveling — a wildly popular Korean manga adapted by a Japanese studio — with my wife. Before that, she had just finished Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, Naruto, and she’s still actively following the never-ending One Piece — all longtime favorites of mine too.

While we’re both huge fans of these masterpieces, we often joke — like many readers do — about one recurring pattern: power inflation.

In case you’re not familiar, power inflation happens when everyone keeps getting stronger — to the point where power itself stops feeling special. At first, the protagonist’s abilities seem astonishing. But as the story progresses, more characters gain equally overwhelming powers. Eventually, no one stands out, and the uniqueness fades.

Sound familiar? It should.

Because AI is creating power inflation in software engineering — just like visual tools once flattened the value of graphic design.

Software engineering used to feel special.

I still remember the excitement of running my first portfolio website — built with vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It felt like magic to me, a graphic designer who’s always been intimidated by math, science, and code.

And I think many people outside the tech bubble feel the same. Maybe not “magical,” but certainly distant, unapproachable, and powerful. You don’t quite understand how engineers turn a bunch of characters and symbols into world-shifting apps like Google, Amazon, and Spotify. They’re a group of mysteriously talented, well-paid wizards living in Silicon Valley.

So when I successfully made the leap into front-end development, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of privilege. At first, it felt like I had unlocked access to a rare kind of power — and that I had established an unbreakable career moat.

But more importantly, it felt liberating compared to my experience as a graphic designer — because I no longer had to constantly justify the value of my work.

Design often feels easy to people, while software engineering doesn’t. Design is everywhere. Anyone can sketch something with a pen and paper and call it design. But programming? That feels like a guarded realm.

As a designer, it was always a challenge to convince clients to pay for an intentionally simple logo made of Helvetica characters with carefully considered spacing. You’ve spent hours researching, sketching, and fine-tuning — but all they see is a company name they think they could just make with Microsoft Word.

But a long time ago, before the digital age dawned, graphic design used to feel like a special power too. Back then, creating a visual that looked professional wasn’t easy. As technology evolved, that changed. Tools made it easier for non-professionals to produce results that looked polished.

And when something feels easy to do, it stops feeling special. The sense of distance collapses.

Now, that same collapse is happening to software engineering.

For a long time, coding was protected by an intimidating hacker image: neon-green characters and symbols blinking on a black terminal screen. Building software looked mysterious, difficult — almost untouchable.

But AI is changing everything. With tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, v0, Lovable, and many more, anyone can spin up an app in minutes. No frills, just vibes.

Software engineers can’t hide behind the encrypted code wall anymore. Clients and project managers now have the power to build things themselves — and as a result, software engineering is starting to feel easy.

People will begin evaluating your work based on what they can see (the output), not by the invisible process, not the hours you spent crafting clean, performant, or elegant code behind the scenes.

Again, this is all about perception. When everyone has the power to build software, software engineering stops feeling special or astonishing. No matter how much craft you put into it, the moat is broken.

I’m anxious about this shift. I once left behind a graphic design title to escape a power inflation problem — and now I’m living through another one, this time as a software engineer.

What should I do with my career? Is my value gone again?

Do I double down on engineering and try to level up to an “irreplaceable” tier — if that’s even possible?

Or should I make another shift, hoping AI won’t catch up as fast?

Could I finally trust the value of my multidisciplinary skill set and welcome a generalist renaissance?

Or maybe this is a wake-up call to leave the conventional career path altogether — to stop chasing titles, and instead create my own pathless path?

I don’t have the answers. These questions cut deep — into wealth and purpose, the kind that take a lifetime to figure out.

I wonder: what would manga protagonists do when they’re beaten down by frustration and doubt, and everyone else is just as strong, if not stronger? What can we learn from Luffy, Naruto, Deku, Itadori, and Edward?

I guess they always find the courage to confront what they’ve feared or abandoned, and to embrace what makes them different. That’s where their strength comes from.

Authenticity — maybe that’s the one core thing each of the authors of these masterpieces is trying to communicate through their manga heroes.

And maybe that’s why these stories resonate so deeply.

Deep down, we know authenticity is the answer. But living it — truly living it — is terrifying. For me as well.

AI is reshaping the world and shaking our identities. Designers have been struggling with this for years. Now, software engineers will struggle too.

I’m still figuring it out. But for now, I’ve decided to follow my curiosity, try not to overthink, and see where it leads.

What would you do?