The greatest risk of AI is not job loss — the greatest risk of AI is the very thing that makes us uniquely human: our agency.
We are engaged in the most profound technological evolution in human history. Artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced neurological integration technologies are categorically eliminating the need for labor in industries that once defined our survival, economic prosperity and social structure. This era of AI is no longer hypothetical. The age of artificial intelligence is here and now.
If history has taught us anything, it is that individuals, organizations and industries that fail to learn and adapt disappear and are rendered obsolete.
As I speak with business leaders, municipalities, educators and families across Utah, I can feel the collective anxiety, and it is focused on the wrong threat. We are inundated with the news of job displacement, and our obsession has taken our focus away from what is actually at stake.
The greatest risk of the AI era is not job loss; it is the loss of meaning. It is the loss of our greatest asset, our human agency.
A future in which humans are universally provided for but are no longer required to create, decide or contribute is not a utopia. When we are insulated from effort and consequence, responsibility and learning, all meaning erodes. Motivation dissipates, social systems disappear and humanity slowly fractures until we forget what it means to be human. A “post-work” dystopia is not an advanced world. It is a dead one; a failure of civilization itself.
Work, understood not as drudgery but as purposeful creation and contribution, is an eternal principle. As humans, we grow and learn through work and service; as a result, we become. Remove these friction points, and the conditions for human flourishing collapse.
I founded the General AI Proficiency Institute (GenAIPI), where we are unapologetically pro-AI. AI can remove drudgery, increase abundance and unlock new frontiers of possibility. Fear-based narratives that frame AI as inherently evil are misguided. Our complacency is the danger — not the technology. Allowing systems to take the place of human responsibility, judgment and creation is the evil we should reject.
Outsourcing to technologies that promise abundance without contribution is not freedom. Dependency does not produce security; humans must remain responsible for their future.
Humanity’s superpower is creation!
Agency is not a singular idea: it is a set of commitments. At its core, human agency is the ongoing choice to act rather than be acted upon. It is the capacity to adapt, create and take responsibility for meaningful work, rather than being reduced to a consumer of what others build. It’s the ability to contribute value and impact even when technology removes the necessity of survival labor.
Humanity’s superpower is creation! We create art, music, communities and cultures. We even create people! We create tools, businesses and empires. Creation is a choice that is never effortless. It demands work, requires care and carries responsibility. Meaning comes from our stewardship of our creations; raising children, serving people and sharing our abilities with the world. The pathway from work to stewardship is uniquely human, and without work, why are we here?
AI allows us to create incredible things with just words. We aren’t the first to do this.
As technology supports the basics of survival, humans must move upward. A future worthy of humanity requires investment in family, service to others, lifelong learning and a relentless pursuit of what is possible. There will always be work to be done; it will simply become a higher order of work. Will the transition be difficult? Possibly and probably. But the future we must push toward is not one where humans abdicate all work to robotics and lines of code. We must push to the next line, to the next precept.
AI will displace many tasks that we do today. And that’s OK. We are capable, and we must evolve.
AI may assist. AI may amplify. AI may accelerate. However, it must never replace human creation, human judgment, human responsibility, human service and human becoming. If not, our agency is at risk.
The future belongs to those who choose to not bury their heads in the sand. We must take it upon ourselves to learn, to be aware, and to carefully consider how we can navigate these changes for ourselves, our families, and society as a whole.