This post will have a slight old-man-shakes-fist-at-sky vibe, because….well… I’m older, so if you’re not into that, then please feel free skip it.
I have been contributing to this sub for like 3 years now but I’m fearful this post will likely get downvoted into oblivion for what I’m about to say: After running Qwen3.6 27b in a Hermes Agent harness for the last week, I’ve come to the realization that this new crop of local models, in the right agentic harness, with the right tools and permissions, can effectively handle junior-level IT professional work very effectively now. A month ago, I would have said no, but now, they definitely can.
I’ve been in IT for nearly 30 years working at nearly all levels of the industry at some point in my career, and a few days ago I handed Hermes Agent (with Qwen3.6 27b as the model) a task list that I would have handed to a junior level IT admin previously, and I just let it go do its thing, and it absolutely understood the assignment and nailed it.
Paraphrasing here, but I more or less asked the agent to, “Go update this system to the most current patch level, install Docker, load these 5 different GitHub repos and set them all up to use local models, start all the server containers and associated services and let me know when you’re done”
And I’ll be dammed if it didn’t do exactly what it was told. Sure, it hit some slight stumbling blocks along the way, but it overcame ALL OF THEM, or asked me to approve something (as a junior admin might) but it kept on chugging away with little to no intervention needed on my part. Again, I wasn’t using a frontier model, just local Qwen3.6 27b running on a GB10 DGX Spark clone.
It did in an hour and a half what would have taken a junior level IT admin like maybe 3 hours. Not a massive time savings, but a definite labor savings for me which let me accomplish other tasks instead of doing that boring shite.
I see the writing on the wall here. I think It’s only a matter of time before large software developers, IT infrastructure appliance makers, etc, start building mini locally-hosted “admin agents” that run low parameter count fine-tuned SLMs and LLMs that run efficiently on CPU in the background (or vis API) and monitor and resolve issues that would normally be handled by system administrators. System admins won’t be replaced directly, but it will definitely change the ratio of admins needed to support X number of servers by a substantial number because now 1 admin can leverage admin AI agents and support more servers.
Of course, there will be cautionary tales and disastrous AI oopsies when admins get lazy and run in YOLO mode. There will probably even be some sabotage actions by admins who are fearful about being replaced by AI and want to prove they are indispensable by wrecking stuff and blaming AI. With time, I think these issues will be addressed and resolved.
I think the best strategy we as IT professionals can take is to learn and leverage AI agent skills to 10x our output so that we remain relevant and useful. That, and carry a can of WD-40 around with us so we can oil the machines when they need it. Someone has to oil the machines, right?
Seriously tho, I don’t think people outside of our niche AI circle really understand what’s on the horizon. It will be a slow attrition based on AI agents gradually being trusted with more tasks. The models and harnesses over the last month are just different, the agentic Ralph loops are tenacious and the silent failures are much less than before. I’m starting to “feel the AGI” LOL.
I’ve been wrong before (my wife will tell you that) but I just wanted to put it out there to start the civil discourse and see what others in the community think and feel. What’s your take on it?
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