Quick answer: AI will change plenty of jobs, but fear alone won't protect anyone. The disruption ahead is real, and it's better read as an invitation to respond than a verdict to accept.
Lots of folks are afraid of losing their jobs because of artificial intelligence. Yes, changes in the workplace will indeed make life more tumultuous, but this fear of decay shouldn't paralyze anyone ready to react constructively. Our society, flirting with fatalism, is posting signs that suggest we're "Going Out of Business," but we should read them as invitations to heroism: "Help Wanted!"
Macro Fear vs. Micro Fear
Nervous critiques of AI tend to be focused on "macro" predictions about economics and politics spread by the news media. There are also "micro" worries convening families around their dining room tables to downsize their budget plans, jarred by stories heard from neighbors and relatives. The growing angst deserves our attention, as well as a rebound in solidarity. That angst is measurable: a Pew Research Center survey found roughly half of U.S. workers are worried about how AI will affect their jobs.
We need to be "on top of our game," monitoring today's digital disarray as a symptom of heart-numbing artificiality in everyday life. It's time to assess whether we labor for the sake of love—and how love's labors might be lost. To the degree that advanced technology will become our rival in the workplace, we must decide to bring out the best in the special species called humanity.
Your Relationship With God, and What It Has to Do With Your Job
Mankind's relationship with God, which receives little support in a secular culture, adds extra dimensions to the AI rivalry. As sons and daughters of divinity, we're offered the solid advantage of great graces. But our Creator also asks us to work, and he cares about what we do, plus how and why we do it. Ironically, some tech developers expect near-miracles from their most advanced AI models—without demanding to understand the how and why of their behavior. (Magis Center's own writers have wrestled with what intelligence actually is long before this debate went mainstream.)
Humans must admit that too many of the jobs we perform nowadays are motivated by power and greed, with our standards for some outcomes embarrassingly low. A relationship with a loving God makes us more responsible to truly figure ourselves out, to "earn" our paychecks honestly and share our talents for the common good, a greater good.
The Prayer That Reframes What Work Is For
People recognized the dignity of work before technology was super-sized and made our partner. A prayer-poem sometimes linked to Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) tasks the reader: "Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours."
To begin our critical review of the jobs to be tackled and the principles to be applied, we can look at the age of AI through St. Teresa's lens and also remember two contradictions previously discussed in Phronesis in Pieces commentaries.
Two Contradictions Worth Remembering About AI
- AI is ballyhooed as a great provider of answers to countless problems, but we're likely to learn equally uplifting lessons through the questions posed by technology's evolving role.
- As journalist Sydney L. Harris pointed out in the mid-20th century, "The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers."
Why Younger Generations Feel This Most
Many modern-day people are unsatisfied with their jobs, challenged to integrate careers with other sources of meaning, and perhaps "paid off" in ways that offend the dignity of themselves and others.
Younger generations are especially desperate to ease their depression and anger; they do not know what values or leaders to believe in. Politically, they leap to pre-packaged or theoretical "solutions" such as socialism. This neglects to acknowledge that true satisfaction is grown at the grassroots, not easily imposed as a top-down system.
"Where ignorance is bliss," English poet Thomas Gray observed a few centuries ago, "'tis folly to be wise." If we adopt this sense of resignation, we face the sad prospect that the world's dominant intelligence is artificial. Barna Group's research suggests that Gen Z feels disconnected from human truth and meaning; nearly half of young adults report anxiety over major decisions, and roughly a third describe feeling depressed or isolated.
Fear Isn't a Strategy
Naming the fear honestly is only the first step. The more useful question is what to actually do with it, at work, at home, and in the choices ahead. That's the ground covered in the companion piece, Practical Wisdom vs. Artificial Intelligence: 7 Ways Humans Win at Work, which turns these same convictions into seven concrete strategies for the job market ahead.
