{"id":478013,"date":"2026-03-16T03:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T03:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/478013\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T03:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T03:42:09","slug":"ai-could-give-us-our-lives-back-if-we-dont-blow-it-gene-marks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/478013\/","title":{"rendered":"AI could give us our lives back \u2013 if we don\u2019t blow it | Gene Marks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I pulled into the parking lot of a client\u2019s offices and in the spot next to me was a woman sitting in her car blasting music. She caught me looking and rolled down her window and said, \u201cI\u2019ll be inside in a minute \u2026 Just enjoying my last few moments of freedom!\u201d<\/p>\n

Is this way we want to live? No, it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk recently predicted<\/a> work will be optional. \u201cIt\u2019ll be like playing sports or a video game or something like that,\u201d he said. Sounds nice.<\/p>\n

We may well be at the beginning of a change never before seen by humans, mainly because it will be so fast. In just a few short years, it\u2019s clear that AI will be replacing millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of jobs. According to Musk,<\/a> \u201cAnything digital, anyone sitting at a computer producing files, that\u2019s what goes first.\u201d<\/p>\n

People are terrified about losing their jobs. But should we be?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s assume that AI does have the effect that some like Musk are predicting. Millions of jobs are replaced by agents. Countless office workers are upended by bots placing orders, reconciling accounts, sending out emails, replying to messages, applying cash receipts, writing proposals, creating invoices and doing all the other things that office workers have been doing for more than century.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s also assume that Musk\u2019s other prediction<\/a> comes true: because of the abundance created by AI, there will be some type of universal income. According to Musk, and others, companies will be so productive and so profitable, governments will simply tax a greater share of corporate earnings and then redistribute those taxes back to the people. Putting aside the very real human ability to screw up such a concept and turn any fair system into an unfair one, the assumption is that most people will have enough income to afford both necessities and luxuries without having to work. Let me repeat: without having to work.<\/p>\n

No getting up early and commuting on public transit. No sitting in front of a monitor for 10 hours a day or dealing with co-workers or being scrutinized by your boss. No uncomfortable clothing, pointless meetings, Teams calls, performance evaluations. No office politics, fluorescent lighting, loss of privacy, noisy co-workers, \u201creply all\u201d emails, stinky refrigerators and smelly toilets. No more \u201cgreat resignation\u201d, \u201cbarely minimum Mondays\u201d, \u201ccoffee badging\u201d or \u201cquiet quitting\u201d.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t this what we want? Look at any movie or TV show where people are going to work \u2013 Severance, The Office, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Apartment, Joe Versus the Volcano, The Devil Wears Prada. Are workers portrayed as happy or miserable? Satisfied or stressed? Or are they shown as miserable, bored, feckless robots punching in and punching out in order to receive their meager paycheck in order to enjoy their aimless, fruitless, miserable lives?<\/p>\n

The human species was never created to work in an office. Ask anyone who\u2019s retired if they wish they were back at work and most would look at you like you\u2019re crazy. People on their deathbeds never say they regret not spending more time at work. We like to read, play, watch TV, nap, hunt, ski, be with our families. It\u2019s not natural to replace these very human activities with sitting in a cubicle reading reports all day.<\/p>\n

For those who think that the meaning of life is being in an office, I\u2019m sure that, even in a world of AI, this can be accommodated. We humans are great at filling up the hours until we die. In 1913, the original IRS tax code was 400 pages. Today it\u2019s more than 75,000. We are always making work for ourselves.<\/p>\n

But maybe AI will change the way we perceive of our lives. Maybe when technology is doing all of the crap things humans do, those same humans can step back and find other purposes in their existence. Instead of being afraid of the future, maybe it makes more sense to embrace it. Thanks to AI, humans may finally get the chance to let the machines relieve of us all the mindless, stupid, inane things we\u2019ve been doing in our office. We just have to hope that humans don\u2019t blow the opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The other day I pulled into the parking lot of a client\u2019s offices and in the spot next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-478013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}