AI Versus Humans: A Dialogue

Substack

YOUR QUESTION 

I've read your posts on AI with considerable interest. I am the owner of a Fintech organization that provides AI to mortgage companies. My partners and I get your posts all the time. Few people in the mortgage world seem to be as honest and forthright as you. We have suggested to our clients that they sign up for your AI Policy Program. We want our customers to be fully engaged in working with AI. I am writing you about a disagreement that I have with your portrayal of AI as eventually replacing humans. 

Please engage with me in a discussion of my view. It's OK with me if you want to publish our dialogue. The more discussion, the better for everyone. But I think the gloom-and-doom perspective overlooks the nuances and is not historically valid. 

There is a fundamental error people have about AI. They look at the economy and see a fixed amount of work to be done, like a pie that can only be sliced smaller and smaller as machines take bigger bites. Critics of AI say that AI users see humans as a competitive resource to be eliminated for a finite amount of work and a finite number of problems. This is fundamentally, totally, and completely wrong. 

Does AI adversely affect jobs in the mortgage world? 

OUR COMPLIANCE SOLUTION 

We suggest:

AI POLICY PROGRAM FOR MORTGAGE BANKING™   

Our AI Policy Program aligns with Freddie Mac's AI governance requirements for Freddie Mac Sellers/Servicers. Responsible AI practices can help align AI system design, development, and use with applicable legal and regulatory guidelines.  

Our AI Policy Program consists of the following policies:  

1.    Artificial Intelligence Governance Policy 

2.    Artificial Intelligence Use Policy 

3.    Artificial Intelligence Workplace Policy 

4.    Artificial Intelligence Credit Underwriting Policy 

5.    Artificial Intelligence Do & Do Not Policy 

6.    Artificial Intelligence Ethics Policy 

7.    Artificial Intelligence Vendor Management Policy   

8.    Artificial Intelligence Mortgage Fraud Policy

Contact us for the presentation and pricing! 

RESPONSE 

I do not see AI as gloom-and-doom; however, I do recognize that it poses significant risks of many kinds. Being aware of those risks may enable preparation for remedies and mitigation of certain adverse, consequential outcomes. 

I have stated my point of view in several speaking engagements and numerous articles, some of which are: 

AI Replaced Me 

Will AI Reduce Fair Lending Violations? 

Will AI Replace Me? 

Freddie Mac Deadline: March 3, 2026 – AI Governance Framework 

Shadow AI in Mortgage Banking 

AI Credit Score Underwriting 

Visit our Compliance Topics to find more articles relating to AI. 

I will not spend time here outlining my perspective fully. For those interested, please read my articles. I always encourage questions and comments. You can contact me here. 

I will provide your views and my responses thereto. For editorial reasons, I will embolden the commenter's statements and follow them with my responses. Also, for editorial reasons, I will publish the two main theses of their opinion, thereby providing both their view and mine. I will include definitions in italics when I think a technical word requires a brief definition. Let's begin! 

Commenter's View 

This is the fundamental error of AI and job doomers. They look at the economy and see a fixed amount of work to be done, a pie that can only be sliced thinner as machines take bigger bites. They see humans as a competitive resource for a finite amount of work and a finite amount of problems to solve that must be eliminated. This is fundamentally, totally, and completely wrong.

AI Replaced Me

YOUR COMPLIANCE QUESTION

YouTube

Two weeks ago, you wrote an article titled Will AI Replace Me? When I read it, I was still employed. Well, it's two weeks later, and I have been fired and replaced by an AI bot. I am still in shock. I really did not think my job was in jeopardy. Other people in my company were also fired and replaced by AI bots.

 

Yours is the only compliance firm I have come across that explains the positives and negatives of artificial intelligence. I guess, for me, it is a big negative. I have been in the mortgage world for over twenty years. My main positions were in underwriting, processing, and closing. I have looked around for work, and nobody's hiring. I'll bet those positions are now using AI bots.

 

I don't know what to do next. I'm only forty-five. I have limited savings and a small family. I feel like I'm getting squeezed out of the mortgage industry. A group of us met with our company's COO, and she said the company is moving rapidly toward AI across its origination process. So, it looks like I'm heading for a dead end. It feels like I'm being thrown on a trash heap.

 

What is happening with these AI bots? 

Is it Us (the humans) against Them (the AI bots)?

 

Signed,

Jobless

 

OUR COMPLIANCE SOLUTION

AI POLICY PROGRAM FOR MORTGAGE BANKING™  

Our AI Policy Program aligns with Freddie Mac's AI governance requirements for Freddie Mac Sellers/Servicers. Responsible AI practices can help align AI system design, development, and use with applicable legal and regulatory guidelines. 

Our AI Policy Program consists of the following policies:  

1.      Artificial Intelligence Governance Policy

2.      Artificial Intelligence Use Policy

3.      Artificial Intelligence Workplace Policy

4.      Artificial Intelligence Credit Underwriting Policy

5.      Artificial Intelligence Do & Do Not Policy

6.      Artificial Intelligence Ethics Policy

7.      Artificial Intelligence Vendor Management Policy  

Contact us for the presentation and pricing! 

 

RESPONSE TO YOUR QUESTION

 

This is a scary time as the world embarks on this new era of AI technology. Unfortunately, unemployment will increase as AI replaces human workers. The change will not be one-for-one. In some cases, it will be far worse, as one AI bot can replace hundreds of humans on a task, especially in loan processing, underwriting, and other operational roles. I'm going to be brutally honest with you: underwriters are among the more commonly cited "at risk" roles in mortgage banking.

 

WILL AI REPLACE YOU

 

In the March 19^th article you cited, Will AI Replace Me?, the concern expressed was from a loan officer. However, I stated the following AI automations that, as implemented, would adversely affect the need for humans, as follows: 

·       AI underwriting engines can now complete the entire initial underwriting process autonomously, approving loans days faster than traditional methods. This process is probably the clearest current example of loan origination being removed entirely from human hands. 

·       Unfortunately, loan processors, underwriting assistants, compliance analysts, escrow coordinators, closing personnel, and data entry clerks are at the intersection I described above, where humans and mimicking humans reside. 

In the March 25^th article, Will AI Reduce Fair Lending Violations?, I noted, in pertinent part, that "AI can streamline underwriting, reduce operational costs, and identify creditworthy applicants that traditional credit scoring methods might overlook." 

SYSTEMIC CHANGE 

The transition is systemic, not particularized to just your company, loan products and services, region, or institutional type. From point of sale to securitization, AI is quickly becoming embedded. AI is already doing a lot of what junior underwriters used to do. And, as you know, Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter and similar automated systems have been handling straightforward loan approvals for years. That trend is accelerating due to artificial intelligence.