The Job Isn't Just The Job

We’ve automated the hands. We’re automating the heads. What’s left is the heart: presence, commitment, and care. That’s the third labor — relational labor — the work machines can’t replicate because they can’t relate in the truest sense of the word.

As Donald Knuth put it: “Ai has by now succeeded in doing essentially everything that requires ‘thinking’ but has failed to do most of what people and animals do without thinking …”

What do we have left that is ours and ours alone? Sensorimotor skills that are all but automatic, yes. Consciousness, yes. Emotions. Instinct. Appetites, impulses and dr... See more