Artificial Intelligence is here to stay, and AI tools are already redefined how we interact with the internet, the world, and each other. Caught up in existential questions about an AI future is today’s threat of AI taking our jobs. While that’s an important discussion to have, there’s another question to ask — one that’s more fundamentally human: how can we still find meaning through work in an AI era?
What We Get From Work
Employment is more than a cold exchange of time & skill for remuneration or compensation. From a human point-of-view, employment is an opportunity to:
- Get out of the house;
- Socialise with colleagues;
- Be part of a team;
- Help people;
- And most importantly, find purpose in your day-to-day.
Most of these things can be found in almost any job, except the last one. Finding meaning at work is highly subjective and personal. Many people have specifically chosen their career path because of the fulfilment they get from it.
But if that’s you, AI obsoleting your role becomes more than just about finding another way to get paid. Instead, AI taking your job threats a core avenue of enjoyment, purpose and meaning.
AI is Changing Work, for Better and Worse
While we aren’t yet seeing professions completely disappear, we are witnessing roles adapting to AI. There is still a clear value proposition for having a human workforce, but there are emerging categories of tasks where AI systems have taken over.
The up-side is that by automating a lot of the busy-work, workers can focus on the more engaging, higher impact parts of their job. There is little doubt that offloading those kinds of tasks to AI can genuinely help individuals find more motivation and meaning in work.
But on the flip-side, AI is gaining abilities to replace the core functions of some roles. Digital-native and creative professions are being hit the hardest, where AI agents can now generate designs, create art, write code, analyse data — all faster and cheaper than you ever could. It turns humans in these roles from makers to supervisors, stripping away what gives joy to so many.
One of these futures sounds a lot better than the other. Unfortunately, we’re seeing both.
“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”
— Joanna Maciejewska
Glimmers of Hope
Despite the unsettling feeling that AI is stripping meaning from modern work, there are some glimmers of hope.
- AI actually needs us. Generative AI models like ChatGPT and Claude are trained on enormous datasets of human work. Without it, they’d be akin to Spotify without a license for any music. Research has further shown that training new AI models on previous AI outputs can quickly lead to model collapse. So unless we want AI to snapshot the world and never move forward, we still need a human element.
- An echo is not a replacement. AI works by using its training data to generate an output. It can sound uncannily human, but it’s just an echo. There is no thought, emotion or consciousness behind the words; real people are confusing, complex and conflicted. AI isn’t becoming human, it’s just sounding like it.
- People still value humanity. At the end of the day, we’re building things for other people, and there’s something about a real, human connection that AI is yet to replace. And even though we’re starting to leave the uncanny valley of AI generations, just knowing something wasn’t made by a person might change how you perceive it. It’s clear that imperfection and authenticity are attributes we still crave.
AI Can Replace Us. But Should It?
There’s a saying that most former children likely heard growing up:
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should”
— Your parents, probably
And, as you slowly discovered in your teens and twenties, they were probably right. What it represents for us though is a need to re-evaluate where we use AI now that capability is no longer in doubt.
This isn’t the type of discussion where you can put together a task list of things AI should and shouldn’t do. It’s a case-by-case basis, and discussions need to start from a place that can affect real change. Because nobody is forcing employers to replace humanity with AI; it’s up to them to assess where AI makes sense and where the human touch should remain.
But as AI becomes more prevalent, there will be more employers who hyper-optimise humanity out of their workforce. If you find your role no longer gives you the fulfilment it once did, it might be time to start looking for a employer that values you, your contributions and your humanity. Because they will still exist, even if they become rarer.
Rediscover Meaning in Our Work
The biggest question that will shape the future relationship between AI and work is how much we value human capabilities. But it’s fairly clear that the world — at least in it’s current state — still values the work, purpose and creations of real people.
But it also puts a spanner in the works for future waves of university graduates who feel the world they were learning about doesn’t exist anymore. Considering junior roles are starting to either demand more of applicants or disappear entirely, these fears aren’t unwarranted.
At the end of it all, increased AI adoption is changing things — fast. And just like how it was first up to us to find meaning in this world, we’re once again tasked with rediscovering it in the face of AI changing work.
Whether or not we can is still an open question. But if one thing’s for sure, we shouldn’t give up trying.