If AI can automate our work, what’s the point of having a job?

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“Something big is happening.” That was the ominous headline of a 5000-word essay that ricocheted around the internet last week.

Written by Matt Shumer it breathlessly warned that the progress AI is making has now accelerated so quickly that we are severely underestimating the disruptive impact it’s likely have on almost every aspect of society.

Although written with a bias (Shumer is the chief executive of an AI company), and frequently hyperbolic, the essay unquestionably captured the zeitgeist. Within a week, the post had been read more than 83 million times, showing how widespread the fear and interest is in this new technology that’s moving quicker than we can keep up with it.

But amidst all the hype and hysteria, there was one big question that it didn’t answer. This became clear as I scrolled past the essay published on Elon Musk’s X to the next post underneath it.

“I just watched my Mac finish a 4-hour workday in 90 seconds,” wrote the poster, alongside a breathless video demonstrating a new AI product. It showed a user speaking to their computer – because apparently even typing is one of the chores it wants to eliminate.

AI is so focused on creating the perfect end product that they haven’t realised that the imperfect process of creation is just as important.

In the demo, a hypothetical worker receives an email from their boss asking where the report is that was due that day? The worker asks their robot to make up an excuse and automatically send an email, then gets AI to automatically write the report, automatically turn it into presentation slides and automatically attach it with an apology to their boss.

All of this happens with very little human intervention, nor understanding of the process or any of the thinking involved in creating the report that was submitted on their behalf.

Amid the admiring comments below the video was a lone commenter: “What’s the point of even having a job if a machine can do it in 90 seconds?” They asked. The original poster simply replied: “You tell me.”

Which brings us to the biggest issue with AI’s breakneck advancements. So many of the new developments are focused so intently on creating the perfect end product that they haven’t realised that the imperfect process of creation is just as important.

What’s the point of getting AI to write a report that we don’t understand? Or craft an email that we don’t care about? Or write a social post that we don’t mean? All of these are superseded by the biggest question that not enough people are asking right now: do we actually want this?

These are complex and existential questions about the value of work, and whether our jobs are solely about the output we create, or also the intangible benefits that come along with doing hard things.

Work gives us structure, identity, some purpose, connection and financial security, and when you remove any of those elements, you begin to unravel some of the very core of what makes us human.

Now, I use AI most days, and have incorporated some of its skills into my research and workflows, but that doesn’t stop me from still having red lines in areas that I don’t want to use it in.

The direction AI is moving, and quickly, is towards a place where the role of humans doing any kind of work will be progressively erased. Is that what we really want?

The author of the viral essay, Shumer, was correct that something big is happening. But what he left out was that it’s mostly happening against our will.

If we don’t put some kind of brakes on it now, like international guidelines around development and implementation, we’re all about to be dragged into a future that none of us are asking for.

Tim Duggan is author of Work Backwards: The Revolutionary Method to Work Smarter and Live Better. He writes a regular newsletter at timduggan.substack.com