The standard pitch goes like this: artificial intelligence will handle the tedious stuff, freeing humans to tackle complex problems that require uniquely human skills. We’ll all ascend to more meaningful work.
This assumes people actually hate routine tasks and crave constant intellectual challenge. Maybe that’s true for the overachievers cluttering your LinkedIn feed. But plenty of people work to pay bills, not to self-actualise.
They tolerate boring jobs because it means going out on weekends, doing things with mates, taking a proper holiday once or twice a year. Nothing wrong with that arrangement.
From an employer’s perspective, AI delivers faster results without sick days or pay rise negotiations. The economics are compelling. But all those displaced workers won’t simply vanish into thin air.
They’ll need somewhere to go. And we won’t have long to figure it out.
Maybe universal basic income isn’t the fringe idea it seemed five years ago. Without some kind of safety net, you get social unrest. Nobody wants that—not politicians, not businesses, not anyone with something to lose.
The question isn’t whether AI will reshape work. It’s whether we’ll adapt our systems fast enough to handle the transition without everything falling apart.
From reinergaertner.de, est. 1997. Translated with the help of an AI that speaks better English than I do. Which isn’t saying much, after 25 years of Denglish.