I spent years twisting Tableau into shapes nobody thought possible—back when I first downloaded version 9.2 in 2016, nights blurred into mornings as I negotiated every pixel by hand. I loved knowing my data inside out, soliciting human feedback, then watching friends marvel at a chart born from my obsession. Lately, though, I plug a URL into Claude, ask for an “improved blue version,” and get it in seconds. What once took weeks of slow-cooked tinkering now feels hollow. My personal dataviz projects used to be my playground; now they’re automated chores, and the spark that drove me to count coffees in 40 hours of Twin Peaks just to plot a quirky chart is gone. On the job market, the shift’s even sharper. Two years ago companies hunted Data Visualization Experts and Dashboard Designers. I was fielding five LinkedIn messages a day. Now they want one person who can handle data modeling, stakeholder talks, analysis, reporting and AI engineering. I spend maybe 5 percent of my week in Looker—hardly a true visualization tool—yet I don’t mind. I’ve always switched gears when the world demanded it. Still, I’m not sure when I’ll pick up dataviz again. I’ve got projects tucked away, and the thrill may return. For now, AI hasn’t killed data visualization—it just made it too easy, and that killed the fun.