The Vanishing Sense of "I Did This"

"AI is becoming a routine part of how we work. People use it to draft emails, take notes in meetings, write reports, create presentations, develop strategies, and a whole lot more. And this is very much a one-way street with a clear direction of travel: As AI develops, and as humans become more comfortable with using it, more and more of our cognitive work will get offloaded to our digital helpers."

"But what is then left for us? When AI handles most of the items that normally populate our to-do list, where will we find satisfaction and meaning in our work? This isn't just an interesting philosophical question. It's a deeply practical question that all knowledge workers should be asking, because, unless we find the answers, we will be doomed to unhappy and disengaged working lives."

"The Changing Nature of Work AI won't just do more of our work for us. Much more important, AI is changing the nature of work. Consider how we used to approach a problem. We might spend an afternoon brainstorming solutions, sketching possibilities, discarding dead ends, and gradually working our way toward an answer. Now we might describe the problem to an AI model, ask it to generate 10 different approaches, and pick the one we think is best."

AI is becoming routine in work, handling tasks like drafting emails, taking meeting notes, writing reports, creating presentations, and developing strategies. As humans grow more comfortable, cognitive work gets offloaded to digital assistants. That shift raises questions about where satisfaction and meaning will come from when AI completes most to-do items. AI changes not only the volume of work but its nature: it can replace early-stage thinking like brainstorming and first drafts, compressing hours of effort into minutes. Efficiency and productivity rise, but workers become more distant from the creative process, risking disengagement.

Read at Psychology Today