We've been watching the same pattern repeat for two decades, and it seems nobody notices.
First, access to knowledge was democratized with the Internet.
Suddenly, any developer in any corner of the world could access the same documentation, the same information, and the same communities that were once reserved for technological elites.
It no longer mattered if you lived in Madrid or in a remote village in the Asturian mountains. If you had an internet connection, you had access to knowledge.
Now we're experiencing the second wave: execution is being commoditized.
As you read this, millions of developers—you among them—are assisted by artificial intelligence agents to accomplish in days what would have taken weeks two years ago.
The result? A junior with three months of experience can generate functional code that was previously beyond their reach.
This isn't good or bad, it simply is. But it has consequences.
If accessing information—knowledge—and its implementation—action—are within anyone's reach, the time has come to evaluate and update exactly what our role is as web professionals.
What Comes Next?
It's difficult to answer with certainty, but there's something artificial intelligence cannot replicate. At least for now.
By design, AI cannot create anything that doesn't already exist. It can only recombine, optimize, and apply what humans have already created. It's a fundamental limitation, not a bug that will be fixed in the next version.
This makes human creativity the most representative value in a world where everything else is being automated. The last stronghold in a changing world.
AI is threatening to many because most have given up their creative impulse in exchange for warming a seat or a stable salary. In other words, they were already easily replaceable.
AI has only made it more obvious.
The Developer Who Won't Be Replaced
If you don't want to be replaced, stop trying to compete with artificial intelligence on its turf. It makes no sense. It's a race you cannot and will never win.
Don't try to be faster at generating boilerplate code. Don't try to memorize more syntax. Don't seek to be more efficient at writing standard functions.
Although it sounds absurd with all the hype, the shitty content on social media (and your own naivety), it's not about adopting AI characteristics, but the opposite: being more human than ever.
Compete on ground where AI cannot tread: creative resolution of unique problems.
Creativity is the keyword.
But to talk about what creativity is, let's first discard what it is not.
What Isn't Creativity?
Creativity isn't repeating the same year once more and calling it experience.
If you only accumulate repetitions, you haven't learned anything new, you've only perfected the routine (ES only).
That's not progress, it's stagnation disguised as seniority.
Believing you can be "creative" without paying a price is another illusion. Nothing is free: every creative leap implies risk, discomfort, and sometimes, failure.
Your actions—and your omissions—always have consequences.
If you don't care about combining ideas differently, if you no longer explore outside the manual, then you've signed your own sentence: you'll be more easily replaced.
And there's nothing tragic or unfair about it. It's logical, natural, and one hundred percent your responsibility.
If you don't contribute, step aside. It's nothing personal.
Creativity is the result of assuming that responsibility: challenging your own inertia, deliberately making yourself uncomfortable, and putting something of yourself into every solution. The rest is repetition.
And repetition, in the age of AI, is fodder for automation.
What Is Creativity?
In my experience—after many years developing and teaching—creativity isn't something you can seek directly.
It doesn't manifest just because. It doesn't appear when you open a blank code editor and think "now, I'm going to be creative."
Creativity is an emergent characteristic: the result of a process.
It emerges when you have a real problem to solve. When you face a technical limitation that seems impossible to overcome. When the client asks for something you've never done before and you have to invent the solution on the fly.
However, its most important quality is also the hardest to believe: limitations don't kill creativity, they feed it.
When you want to build something never seen before, work with a ridiculous time budget, when the designer has given you something impossible to implement, when the browser doesn't support the functionality you need... that's where creativity appears.
Artificial intelligence doesn't have the limitations that people have. It has access to all digitized knowledge. It can try a thousand approaches in seconds. But precisely because of that, it cannot be creative.
Not like us, at least.
Creativity is born from friction (not from abundance) and friction requires context: the human.
How to Be Creative Human?
Addressing this topic without falling into paternalism is almost impossible, but I'll try: it's not about learning anything new or waiting for someone to give you permission or the formula.
The reality is that, as Homo sapiens, you already come equipped with all the capabilities you need—not just to survive, but to thrive—in the midst of this era.
The question isn't adding exotic skills, but remembering and training what has always been there.
Maybe you just need to test it again, with real intention.
Here are some examples.
Solve Human Problems
AI can optimize code, but it cannot understand why a user gets frustrated with an interface. It cannot perceive the politics of a development team. It cannot negotiate with a client who changes their mind every week.
The hardest technical problems are—almost—always human problems in disguise.
If you don't know what problems to solve, start with your own: scratch your own itch.
Embrace Limitations
When you encounter a technical restriction, don't immediately look for the most obvious solution. Ask yourself: is there a completely different way to approach this?.
AI will give you the standard solution. You can find the solution nobody had thought of before, either because it's fundamentally unique or it's a combination nobody has tested, until now.
Develop Technical Judgment
AI can generate code that works, but it cannot evaluate if it's the best solution for your specific context. That evaluation requires experience, business understanding, and technical judgment.
The developer of the future doesn't just write code, they evaluate it in its entire context, including human dynamics.
Connect Different Domains
Creativity often emerges when you connect ideas from seemingly unrelated fields. AI operates within established patterns. You can jump between domains.
What happens if you apply 3D development design concepts to an enterprise application? Or if you use distributed systems architecture patterns in the Frontend?.
The Great Paradox Nobody Talks About
With all the vibe coding (whatever that means) and the hype flooding the sector for clicks, it seems like building professional web projects and experiences is within anyone's reach.
But it's not.
Now, with AI, anyone can transform an idea into a prototype in a matter of hours. But if you do it without a real foundation—without experience, without deep understanding, and with inflated expectations—most likely, at best, you'll make a fool of yourself. At worst, you could get into legal trouble by creating a security hole.
That's the paradox: you don't have to choose between creativity and professionalism.
You need both.
To be truly creative, you must first master the fundamentals. You can't innovate on what you don't understand.
AI can make you faster, but it doesn't give you judgment or understanding. Only with real mastery can you break rules and add real value.
That's why, while others obsess over the latest AI trend and look for shortcuts, you should spend time understanding what never changes: pure JavaScript, design principles, solid architecture, user experience.
When you master the fundamentals, AI will be just an extension of your judgment.
It will multiply your impact, but it can never replace you, because where the algorithm ends, your judgment and instinct begin. This is what makes you human.
And that can neither be copied nor automated.
It's Your Decision
AI isn't going to replace developers.
AI isn't going to "kill Frontend."
The next time you hear that mantra, remember two things:
- There have always been and will always be professional doomsayers.
- Whoever repeats it only speaks from fear, ignorance, stupidity or just need for attention.
Now, the reality:
We're living through the greatest inflection point in recent history and no, it's not a threat, it's the greatest opportunity (ES only) you'll have in your professional life.
You can resist. You can complain. You can look for excuses or nostalgia.
It won't help you at all.
If you work with knowledge, you have a decision to make. And it's not whether it affects you or not: it's how you're going to respond.
It's not humans against machines. It's humans who use machines creatively against humans used by machines.
Accepting AI isn't enough. You need a proactive stance: use it as an extension of your judgment, not as a crutch for your laziness.
Go "all in."
But remember: AI cannot enable what doesn't exist.
If there's no curiosity, if there's no real desire to solve problems, if you give up on creating, even from limitation, then you've already surrendered.
That's the real limit: the last human bastion isn't code, nor technology, nor even knowledge.
It's our innate capacity to use all of that to create something unique.
To leave a mark.