The future of work when work is meaningless

Everyone is worried about whether or not AI will replace them. But I can’t help but think that there is something about the human experience that can’t be replaced. I can’t help but think that humans will still want to work. That is, they will still want to create something, share it with another, and be recognized for their contribution by receiving some form of currency in return. This is a fundamental aspect of human nature, but it’s unfortunate that “work” has become dirty word stripped of meaning as productivity has become our God. I am less concerned with industrial factory-style work being automated. We all know what that soulless pit does to a person. I am much more concerned with creative work. What will that future look like? Will money become obsolete? Will AGI write all prose and create all art? If struggle, status, and curiosity are the generators of meaning, and AGI promises to rid us of such, what do we do? What is the one thing that AGI can’t replace, if anything? In a world without scarcity, how do you become the scarce good? I want to share 6 ideas on the future of work, the skills and traits you must optimize for as a creative, and ultimately how to live a meaningful life in a future that feels daunting. I’ll share both my own thoughts and theories that I believe hold relevant weight. And if you are a creative who wants to know if AI will ever replace your work, this is for you. Let’s begin. Meaning has become a scarce good. It’s not hard to see that. But to understand how we got into this mess, a little history lesson helps. You see, reality develops toward greater complexity over time. When things become too complex or chaotic, a new ordered structure (or a new whole to envelop the parts) must emerge. A few simple examples: Letter → Word → Sentence → Paragraph Atom → Cell → Molecule → Organism Matter → Life → Mind → Spirit This is how reality is structured. When it comes to meaning, I want to focus on how societies have evolved, which can be seen in two ways: 1) The techno-economic base (or dominant mode of production) of past societies and specific technology used. Foraging → Horticultural → Agrarian → Industrial → Informational → Whatever comes next (Intelligence?) 2) The dominant worldview and value structure of people within those societies (their meaning-making system). Premodern → Modern → Postmodern → Whatever comes next (Metamodern?) For brevity, we can speedrun the first few. Foraging societies were hunter-gatherers. Easy. In horticultural societies, men were the hunters and women tended small plots. In agrarian societies, food came from large scale farming, enabling massive surpluses, allowing men to work less so they could use their new time to explore, discover, and conquer. The technologies of these societies developed from: Axes, spears, and fire → Hoe and digging sticks → Animal drawn plow (from human labor to animal labor). All of these societies fell largely within the premodern worldview. In other words, meaning is given by a higher power (elders, scriptures, kings, priests). You were told what to believe. You conformed. Agency was a trait that could get you killed or cast out. Then came the Industrial Age, where food production came from mechanized agriculture. Fewer farmers fed more people, food became a commodity. The primary technologies were steam, coal, and oil. Human and animal labor were needed far less. One key insight here is that the techno-economic base of a society creates the conditions for a new level of worldview and value system to be possible at scale. An industrial society allowed for the modern worldview to take hold that valued rationality. Meaning was discovered through reason, science, and evidence rather than inherited by tradition. Nature became disenchanted, progress replaced the divine, and merit replaced birthright. That’s where things started to go wrong. First, productivity became overemphasized at a young age. The second you were born, you were already expected to go to school, get a job, and become a cog in the machine. You were programmed like a robot since the start. Second, we disconnected from the tribe, village, and community. We are alone in a big digital world of artificial connection. Third, religious and spiritual frameworks were replaced with the mechanical model of the universe. Meaning was no longer given by the divine. Fourth, we began outsourcing our agency to institutions and forgot the value of self-directed work. 9-5 jobs replaced the work of artisans and farmers. These have all led to a corruption in what we do and how we work. Work was broken into simple, repetitive tasks that kept workers dumb to the entire process so they couldn’t replicate it on their own (why generalists always beat specialists, as we’ve discussed). In other words, meaningless work became our sole focus and means of survival. So much so that we can’t see it any other way, and many people are in for a rude awakening when AI removes this cancer from us. That leads to the Information Age, where the invention of the computer led to a further abstraction from labor. We now sit at desks to work rather than tending fields - for the most part - and allow machines to do the heavy lifting. The dominant worldview now is Postmodern, where we have begun to deconstruct everything prior. The key insight of postmodernism is aperspectivalism, or that no perspective is privileged. All views are situated, partial, and contextual. This is a great achievement, because we now know that one view is not the one true and absolute view (religiously, politically, etc) that everyone must conform to. This achievement, however, has only accelerated the meaning crisis even further. So much so that we are waking up to the fact that something has to change. It also leads to a contradiction that must be solved in the next stage of development (the age of intelligence) we are entering: If no perspective is better, truer, or more developed than another, then the claim that all perspectives are equally valid is a perspective you are claiming is better. It is a value ranking. You deconstruct all hierarchies by creating your own. Postmodernism correctly saw that no perspective is absolute, but then incorrectly concluded that no perspective is better. Some perspectives are, in fact, better. Why does this matter? First, meaning effectively evolved as so: Meaning from “Up There” (the Gods) → Meaning from “Out There” (productivity and progress) → Meaning From “Nowhere” (supposed equality) → What comes next (Meaning From “In Here?”) Second, taste is a core skill that will matter going into the future, demanding that you say one thing is better than another. It demands exclusion. Third, agency is also becoming a core survival skill. Very few people of the past consciously embodied it. Fourth, your individual perspective may just be the one thing that AGI can’t replace. It may just be your competitive edge in your creative work. Fifth, creatives are the meaning-architects of a society, and if the baby is thrown out with the bathwater (jobs), the result could be catastrophic. And last, we’re smack in the middle of chaos, demanding a new structure to emerge. We get to play a role in how the future is formed. This is one massive reason why I write so much. Further, productivity is no longer a reliable identity. Nobody knows what path to take or what skill to learn. Meaning is at an all time low, but so is certainty and security. So what’s the next stage? What can we learn to ensure that we don’t enter this new world at a massive disadvantage? To understand that, we must understand the emerging techno-economic base (artificial intelligence), because that creates the conditions for the next worldview, and thus what we value, and even further what we do. Important stuff. AI promises to remove us of all labor. At least that’s what the hype is all about and what everyone is focused on. It promises to provide the necessities so that we no long…