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What Work Should Stay Human?

Thinking that maybe the whole “which jobs will AI replace” has been the wrong question.

Reasonable? Sure. Maybe the obvious one? Yes. If artificial intelligence can write that status report, diagnose an illness, tutor your kid, keep your mother-in-law company, drive a Waymo, check the grammar and spelling here faster, cheaper and (potentially) better than us humans… what happens to… us humans? Bill Gates recently flipped the question in a way that tickles my philosophy funny bone. His note, The Turbulent AI Era Is Here. The Choices We Make Now Are Critical, has gone V.I.R.A.L. because, like many (myself included), he’s stating the somewhat obvious: that governments aren’t prepared for the social and labour market transition that AI *may* create. But the one idea he raises (the one that tickled that bone) is whether governments (or, you know, us regular working folk) may eventually decide that certain kinds of work should remain human… even when AI becomes perfectly capable of doing them.

Oh… that’s a juicy question to discuss and debate.

I love it because it shifts the conversation from economics into values. There are forms of work where the human element isn’t simply an inefficiency waiting to be optimized. Do you want a human caring for your child? Do you want a human caring for you when you’re sick? Maybe AI can help tutor that child. Maybe it can look at more medical data than any doctor could possibly absorb and diagnose the illness. I certainly want those capabilities. But does that mean we want to remove the human from the experience entirely?

Cheaper isn’t the same as better… faster isn’t always the same as desirable.

Business isn’t (always) life. Businesses (for good and bad) work relentlessly toward efficiency. If something can be automated… it shall be done. If costs can be removed… do it. If software can do the work of ten people… the spreadsheet has spoken. AI may be the most powerful expression of that logic we’ve ever seen, because it isn’t only automating physical or repetitive work anymore… it’s moving into creative and deeply human thinking work.

Now we’re getting somewhere… because we’re seeing that work has never been only an economic transaction.

Work gives people independence… purpose… status… dignity. It also creates interactions between people that have value… interactions that become relationships… community. Teachers don’t just transfer information. Nurses don’t just execute medical tasks. Artists don’t just generate content. Maybe AI will help us discover more things that are specially human about work that never shows up on the spreadsheet.

Are humans a luxury product?

If human work becomes less efficient and more expensive than AI, does that mean wealthy families get human teachers while everyone else gets AI tutors? Do wealthy patients get doctors and nurses while everyone else gets incredibly capable machines? Does “human made” become the next premium label? Well… now I’m not convinced governments deciding what work gets “protected” is the best path forward. Because once we agree that some work has value simply because one human is doing it for another human, we have to make a much harder decision…

Who gets to decide which human work is worth preserving?

This (and some other topics) is what Trudie Mason and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · What Work Should Stay Human? – The Elias Makos Show – CJAD 800

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Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.