I learned how to write by being humiliated. After filing my first piece at the New York Times, my editor called me, read back the lede, and said, "Are you kidding me?" I hung up, cried, asked a smart friend for notes, then rewrote the piece 50 times. It was published the following week. Years later, a powerful CEO hired me to create a magazine-like marketing email. On a group call with other executives, he announced that if I was trying to make a living off writing, I would starve.
I did not have an AI to bounce ideas off and help hone my skills. What I had was the brutality of mentors who taught me how to think, how to organize my ideas, and how to tell a good story.
Humans learn through the friction of trying and failing and trying again. But automation allows you to skip failure. Anyone in the workforce can now produce polished decks, strategy docs, and apps without being yelled at by any bosses. But having masterful tools is not the same thing as having mastery.
In the coming years, people may consume a lot of disposable, Shein-like work at first, but soon they will pay for timeless craft. Nothing is more delightful than being surprised by a Gonzo phrase, something so weird and uncanny it could only come from a person who has lived in a body that bumps up against the world. It's why good thinkers and writers can—and will—still make a living.
As fleets of agents automate the work we once asked entry-level employees to do, I am making a case that we return to the master and apprentice model of the Renaissance guild. Masters, who have done the reps and learned the hard way, are part of what I call an "aged intelligence society." They teach the apprentices what good looks like. There's no need to grind the apprentice into dust like we did in the old days, but they'll need more steering than a few ALLCAPS Slack messages.
If we don't want work after automation to herd us toward a beige hellscape of sameness, the masters have to keep teaching the apprentices. AI trains on what generations of masters have made, so if we stop teaching the next generation, everything—even AI—stops learning.
