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Will AI Take My Job? That’s The Wrong Question…

We thought AI was going to come for our jobs.

But that’s not what’s happening (…yet).
AI is coming for the tasks inside every job (…now).
That’s a huge difference (…for now).

And it forces a better question:

What does it mean to be good at your work – when the hard parts are now the easy parts?
AI isn’t the end of human work.
It is the beginning of a new kind of work.
Not humans vs. AI (…yet).
Humans with AI (…for now).
We’re not being replaced (…yet).
We’re being repositioned (…for now).

A recognizable analogy?

The Industrial Revolution.
The best workers weren’t the ones who could hammer the fastest – they were the ones who could run the machines.
Same thing now (…for now).
In this AI-powered workplace, your job isn’t to outperform the machine.
It’s to ride it…. to tame it (…for now).

How do we humans thrive in this new economy?

I’ve built a mini-framework (maybe more of a mindset?).

It’s called: P.A.C.E.

P – Palate: Your taste. Knowing what’s good, what resonates, what works… having an acumen for what connects with others.
A – Agency: A deep understanding of your own agency. Your ability to choose, act, and be accountable.
C – Commune: To be together… in our protein forms. To connect… heart to heart. To collaborate and lead… in person. Because a live concert is always better than watching it on YouTube.
E – Elevate: Your capacity to make average things better. To add the human layer that matters. To grow above what the machines can (and will) do.

Learn the tools? Yes… but more importantly, learn how to think… think twice.

Get curious about prompting.
Get sharp about strategy.
Get better at better questions.

Get brilliant at being human.

AI can write a poem.
AI can plan your next vacation.
AI can draft your resume.
AI can write this article (but it didn’t… or did it?).

But it can’t dream your dream.

The workers who thrive won’t be the fastest or the cheapest – they’ll be the ones who see second-order consequences, apply emergent thinking to ambiguous problems and are in a state of continuous learning.
AI isn’t asking what you can automate.
It’s asking what you still want to do… when doing it is no longer required (or costs next-to-nothing for it to produce).

That’s the real future of work.

And it belongs to those who decide not to compete with machines…
…but to build what the machines can’t imagine.

This is what Andrew Carter and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

Mitch Joel · Will AI Take My Job? That’s The Wrong Question… – The Andrew Carter Morning 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.