Could This Year Be The Beginning of Death of Achievement?
Why the quest for total efficiency is making us irrelevant, and how to reclaim the joy of human achievement.
We seem to have discovered how to solve our technical problems through automation, digital technology, and, of course, Artificial Intelligence.
When we build Humane Architecture, we create an antidote to the Vampire Algorithm systems that serve the human, not the other way around.
As mammals, we evolved by tackling and solving problems as they arrived some real, some imagined. For the most part, our intelligence has provided us with fundamental solutions; to this day, we “score” our scientists and leaders based on their intellectual capacity. We have come to believe that intelligence is the sole focus required to get us out of the mess we create daily.
Artificial Intelligence has generated a gold rush. The narrative is simple whoever gets there first, rules.
But is that true?
The Illusion of Expertise
Most of the technology we consume today social media, entertainment, and now AI chatbots is having a negative impact on us and on future generations. I personally fear we will end up with engineers lacking critical thinking skills; people who are merely “prompters.”
The relevant point is that today, anyone can claim to be a programmer, a product owner, a CEO, or a financial advisor as long as they have access to a chatbot.
Creating code? Seconds.
Creating slides? Minutes.
Creating a full app? An hour or less.
You don’t need to be an expert anymore. Much like the phrase “just Google it,” soon you won’t even remember what you did a minute ago. We have created a new problem the exhaustion of being overwhelmed.
The “Vampire Algorithm”
As we ride this immense rollercoaster, we forget about ourselves. We forget the joy of achievement the sense of relief when we finally “do it” through our own struggle.
That feeling is now delegated to a vampire algorithm that simulates thinking without ever knowing what thinking actually is. We are making ourselves irrelevant sad, frustrated animals who do not understand where we are going. The future no longer seems vague; it feels essentially engineered.
The Physical and Environmental Cost
We prefer to have data centers poisoning someone else’s land just so we can have fast responses from our devices, instead of pushing for smaller, sustainable models.
We have allowed ourselves to be imprisoned in a mental cage that keeps our attention focused on things in which we find no value or joy only a sense of obedience to our vices. We were built to run and walk, to dig gardens and paint with our own hands, not to be seated for hours subservient to devices that attract us like flies.
Leadership as a Verb The Path Back to Reality
Our problems are human. Leadership is not about using the fastest tool it is about accountability and action. To lead in this environment, we must intentionally re-introduce “friction” and “effort” back into our processes.
Prioritize Process over Output When a team member produces something in seconds with AI, the leadership “verb” is to ask “What did you learn during the prompt?” If the answer is “nothing,” the value is zero.
The Sovereignty of Movement Encourage your teams to step away from the mental cage. Real breakthroughs happen during the “walk” and the “run,” not the “sit.”
Sustainable Thinking Advocate for models and practices that don’t “poison someone else’s land.” Ethical leadership in 2026 means being accountable for the energy your department consumes.
We forgot to solve for ourselves.
But we can choose to remember.
We can choose to be more than just prompters in an engineered future, one where a few claim to “lead” us, reducing us to mere followers.
A future where your output mirrors millions of others, where convenience is the only creed, and where “personalized” is just a marketing ploy to keep you in a box, convinced you’re unique.
There’s a dangerous denial at play, the belief that technology can solve all our problems, that for every challenge, there’s a solution.
But often, there isn’t. Sometimes, we simply need to live with it or adapt.
Technology should enhance our living, not dictate it. Only you can decide where to go.
What can we do?
Not sure, maybe we should trust more in us, life simple, and stop using certain behaviors.
We seem to be confusing ourselves with digital machines…
Who am I?
I’m Diamantino Almeida, and I’ve spent my career at the intersection of high-growth engineering and strategic leadership.
From scaling technical teams to advising CTOs and Founders, my focus is on “Leadership as a Verb“, the idea that leading is an active, evolving practice, not a static title. Having navigated the shifts from manual infrastructure to cloud, and now to Agentic AI, I’m dedicated to helping the next generation of engineers find their footing in a world that is moving faster than ever.
Beyond advisory, I’m an active Top global 9% *mentor on *MentorCruise, where I help developers and leaders bridge the gap between “writing code” and “delivering business value.”