I needed to draw a simple flowchart.
I needed to clarify a process and was looking for a simple, free, and immediate tool to do it. Nothing fancy: just a way to quickly map out a flow of steps.
To my surprise, almost nothing truly simple exists. Most tools are:
• complicated
• designed for enterprises
• full of unnecessary features
• often paid
So I tried anyway to build the diagram.
And then I realized something striking:
it was easier to build the tool I needed than to find one that already existed.
With the help of AI, I started programming a small tool from scratch.
Soon enough, I didn’t just have the flowchart I wanted.
I had built a fully functional little application.
Out of curiosity, I also explored:
• how to release it open source
• how to publish it online
• how to make it mobile-friendly
And the result is here:
https://easyflowdraw.netlify.app/
But the truly interesting—and maybe unsettling—thing isn’t the app.
It’s that I built it alone.
I’m not a professional developer.
Yet today, with AI, a single person can do work that once required:
• developers
• designers
• project managers
• testing teams
• deployment infrastructure
This isn’t just a personal experiment.
It’s a sign of something much bigger.
We are entering a stage where many cognitive jobs—so-called knowledge work—could shrink drastically.
If one person can design, develop, test, and deploy software with AI, it’s inevitable to ask:
How many knowledge workers will actually be needed in the future?
For decades, we thought intellectual work was safe from automation.
The opposite might be true.
One concrete problem → one person builds a solution → distributed globally.
Now it can happen in a single room, in front of a laptop.
And the most important question may no longer be about technology.
Until a few years ago, this would have required an entire organization.
But what will happen to work itself?