There is no "after automation" unless we can radically expand our modern conception of work.
For now, we are stuck in what I call a job-shaped reality distortion field. We flatten any conception of work down to activities with a job description and a paycheck. In this reality, we turn humans into numbers and talk about abstract topics like layoffs, employment rates, weak links, bundles of tasks, and lumps of labor.
Work is much bigger than this. This month, I have been busy: soothing my newborn at 4 a.m., transporting my three-year-old to school, cooking at home, responding to emails, and carving out a little time for writing, which may earn money or not. Despite accusations of wasting my talents and being unemployed, my days are full of work. And I am fulfilled.
At the same time, we hear loud pronouncements from 23-year-olds in Silicon Valley, declaring that work is "solved." In two years, maybe three, there will be nothing to do. But then who will change my daughter's diaper?
The thing that makes me laugh about these pronouncements is that they come from people drunk on work, waxing philosophical between all-night coding sessions. But if you asked them if their lives are designed around work? They'd say no, because their job is optional. They can job hop or take sabbaticals, all while getting the things humans crave—things like dignity, challenge, purpose—from the lives they inhabit. Lives centered around work.
People without such lives are mystified. What do you mean, "Work is ending?" To them, a job is not optional. The work doesn't end when you leave the office.
We don't yet have language big enough for where we are going. We live in an era in which people have an easier time imagining the end of the world than life with a free Tuesday afternoon. We need to take off our job goggles and see that our lives are already full of work. If we took the time to look at work, not just in job-shaped form, we might find our way forward.
