If the computer is a bicycle for the mind, what is AI?

If the computer is a bicycle for the mind, what is AI?

My family’s vocational history is one of graft, resilience and aspiration for the next generation.

Dad’s mum found joy in teaching pottery, Dad’s Dad - a demobbed soldier - stood for workers’ rights from Smithfield Market to the House of Commons. Mum’s dad built a steady life after the war as a bookkeeper at Spitalfield’s Market until he retired. Nanna’s hands were always busy - sewing, crafting, and caring - finding purpose in home and family. My dad started as a clerk in an office pushing letters around and became a general manager; my mother was a teacher and raised us.

I recently finished reading Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani. I attended a talk by Umbar Shakir at Gartner on developments in AI at Jesus College. I had a chat over ramen with a friend (recently laid off in the USAID debacle) talking about the future of work. Over Saturday brunch another friend (an AI engineer) said “we don’t have an economic model for what the world looks like when we’ve automated professional services”.

If the computer is a bicycle for the mind, it’s amplifying our productivity - we ride faster and farther. The implicit function is still productivity, and that the rider’s purpose is to ride. 

What happens if this is no longer true? 

This got me thinking about the relationship between vocation and identity. 

Continuum

Historically, work was not simply about survival but was tied to identity and purpose. In medieval Europe, vocation was understood in a theological sense: our labor was a divine calling, whether as a farmer, craftsman, or clergy member. The Protestant Reformation, particularly through Martin Luther and John Calvin, reframed work as a form of worship, where diligence and industry were signs of moral virtue.

With industrialization, vocation became secularized and mechanized. Labor shifted from being a personal craft to structured, waged employment under factory discipline. The rise of Taylorism in the early 20th century treated work as a system of measurable efficiencies, emphasizing productivity over personal fulfillment. Work was now about economic survival and duty to the nation’s industrial output than to individual meaning. My grandfathers were soldiers and market workers at Spitalfields. 

By the mid-20th century, as mechanical automation reduced the need for manual labor, the concept of vocation evolved into a model of ‘self-actualization’. Consider work by thinkers like Maslow (hierarchy of needs) and Max Weber (the Protestant work ethic and capitalism). Many professionals began seeking work that was ‘meaningful’, creative, and aligned with personal identity. This era birthed the notion of the "career" as a source of self-expression, rather than just of survival and exchange. My father started out as a clerk in a shipping office delivering mail, and became a general manager; my mother was a teacher and she raised us. 

I think AI disrupts this historical trajectory because it challenges the assumption that human effort is necessary for value creation. If artificial intelligence can automate tasks that were once considered highly cognitive (and human) - coding, legal research, medical diagnostics, even elements of creativity - what happens to vocation? And as goes vocation, what of identity? Who are we if we do not work? 

I keep hearing two drums beating: the one says this is the end of labor, we were at peak horse and now we are at peak human; the other says we’ve been through this before, and (with some significant and jarry) friction, there will be a transition to ‘new jobs’. To me this moment echoes past labor transitions, but with a key difference: historically, new tools expanded human labor, whereas AI may replace or fundamentally redefine it. 

If the computer was the bicycle for the mind, AI lets the human get off the bike entirely. When she does, where will she go and what will she turn her hand to now that she is not pedalling? 

If the medieval craftsman saw vocation as divine, the industrial worker as duty, and the knowledge worker as self-expression, the AI-era worker may see vocation as a process of continual adaptation, synthesis, and creative recombination. This moment encourages us to rethink the notion and roots of labor and identity. 

Character

In early civilizations, vocation was tied to cosmology and hierarchy, where work was seen as fulfilling a preordained role in society.

I grew up in Egypt (modern day) and have always been fascinated by the ancient civilization there. In ancient Egypt (~3000 BC), work was linked to ‘ma’at’, the principle of cosmic balance and order (which remarkably continues as a theme). Farmers, artisans, and scribes had designated roles in maintaining society, and their labor was often seen as service to the gods and the pharaoh, who was a divine ruler.

Skip forward to China in 1000 BC, Confucianism formalized labor as a matter of social harmony - the “Five Relationships” and the Mandate of Heaven dictated that scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants each had their role in maintaining a balanced society. Scholarly vocation was seen as the highest calling, tying personal development to service of the state.

Move to Medieval Europe (5th to 15th Century?) the concept of vocation was religious, particularly in Christianity. Saint Augustine (and later Thomas Aquinas) argued that work was part of God’s design, whether as clergy, farmer, or craftsman. As I mentioned above, by the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin further solidified work as a personal calling that reflected divine favor.

In the factory system under industrialization, work moved from crafts and guilds to mechanized labor, breaking and remolding the connection between personal skill and identity. Work was now transactional, tied to wages rather than lifelong mastery; identity was corporatized and folded into company structure. Marx noted this - feeling that industrial work was dissociative and alienating, stripping workers of their identity by separating labor from personal fulfillment.

By the present day, I think we’ve moved into the ‘Dream Job’ era, likely something that had roots in the aspiration boom of the post-war period. Be a professional, in law, in medicine, academia - and now in banking, consulting, big tech. Our profession has become our self-expression. “Do what you love”; moving beyond the low-fi dissociation of identity in factories and filling it with a corporate identity. 

And so, the historical link between identity and vocation has evolved from cosmic duty (ancient civilizations) to social function (Greco-Roman and medieval worlds) to economic survival and commercial capture (industrial capitalism) to self-expression and professionalism (modern era).

What comes next if ‘productivity’ is no longer the goal? 

Contras

There are examples through these historical periods of individuals and groups rejecting the link between identity and vocation, instead seeking meaning in community, philosophy, art, spirituality, or rebellion. 

In many of these cases, these movements emerged in response to rapid social, economic, or technological change, when traditional structures of work and status felt oppressive, meaningless, or incompatible with evolving values.

In ancient Greece, the Cynics (like Diogenes) rejected conventional labor, wealth, and social roles, believing that work and material success were distractions from true virtue. They found identity in self-sufficiency (autarkeia), living simply, often in poverty, and challenging social norms through asceticism and public provocation. Closer to home, during the English Civil War, radical groups like the Diggers and Ranters rejected private property, wage labor, and the idea that work should determine social status. They sought identity in communal farming, spiritual enlightenment, and radical freedom, advocating for a society without hierarchy. The hippie movement (primarily thinking of the Vietnam-era US) rejected the corporate work ethic and material success, instead experimenting with alternative lifestyles. Many found meaning in communal living, psychedelic exploration, and Eastern spirituality rather than jobs or careers. Will the AI transition see more recluse separatists, psychedelic exploration, and communal living? 

In China (in the Han Dynasty) many Taoist sages (like this guy, Zhuangzi) rejected Confucian ideals of bureaucracy and structured work, seeing them as artificial constraints on human nature. They sought identity in nature, meditation, and effortless action (wu wei), often living in solitude or small agrarian communities. Taoist ideas influenced Zen Buddhism, environmentalist movements, and later countercultures that sought simplicity and harmony with the natural world. Will the AI transition catalyze new spiritual movements? 

Romantic poets (like Keats - who is my favorite - and Wordsworth) rejected the mechanization of life caused by the Industrial Revolution, seeing it as soul-crushing. Industrialization was an antithesis to their themes. They looked over industrial landscapes and factory stacks with disdain. They found identity in creativity, individual expression, and a deep connection to nature rather than structured careers. Will we see a boon in writing, painting, and sculpture - smaller in scale and scope than AI can replicate, but more fundamentally human? 

Compass

In writing this, there is an image that came to mind.

There is an analogy, I feel, around the orientating effects of vocation and work as identity, orienting the individual into a hierarchy that has served the market well and governance of that market and the individuals that make it. 

The image in my mind is that of a magnet placed on a table that has oriented compasses towards it. Imagine that the magnet is pulled away, that the compasses reset to their natural alignment, to due North.

What is our natural alignment in this case if we are the compasses? 

If human identity has been structured around labor and vocation, what do we reorient to when that structure dissolves? 

The answer of what’s next may be the answer to what people are feeling is missing now.

Community and connection is a decent first answer. Humans are deeply social creatures. Without work dictating roles and hierarchy, people may naturally reorient toward relationships and communities rather than individual career success. Pre-industrial societies were structured around kinship, tribes, and small communities rather than labor markets. Post-work experiments (like kibbutzim or co-housing movements) prioritize shared purpose over hierarchy. If vocation stops being the primary magnet aligning our social hierarchies, identity might align toward collective purpose rather than competitive labor.

Another possibility is that, freed from market-driven labor, people return to a state of curiosity, exploration, and play - homo ludens, the playing human. Children do not need structured labor to find meaning; they learn, explore, and create instinctively. The Romantic movement and later countercultures resisted rigid labor structures, seeking meaning in art, literature, and nature. If AI automates rote labor, humans may naturally shift toward self-directed learning, storytelling, and artistic creation as a default state. In this sense, the natural alignment of the human compass might be toward wonder, invention, and self-expression rather than structured labor.

Modern work has largely severed humans from natural rhythms—sleep cycles, seasonal change, and our internal or embodied existence. Without the artificial magnet of vocation, alignment may return to biological and ecological cycles. Taoism sees flow (wu wei) as a more natural way of being than rigid structure. Pre-industrial societies followed agrarian rhythms, aligning daily life with sunrise, planting seasons, and weather patterns. Some degrowth movements today argue that human identity should be reintegrated with nature, rather than industrial productivity. If the orienting pull of work disappears, we might naturally reorient toward slower, organic, cyclical ways of living, rather than linear, career-driven progression. 

When I was Googling historical examples of external structures collapsing, humans often turned inward, toward philosophy, spirituality, and existential meaning-making. The Cynics and Taoists rejected work-driven identity and instead sought a life of minimalism and contemplation. In times of upheaval, people have often sought identity through psychedelic exploration, mysticism, or radical self-inquiry. If work stops being the dominant organizing principle, humans may naturally seek alignment in philosophy, self-awareness, and existential purpose.

I’d welcome people’s thoughts on what’s next. 

Without touching on notions of UBI or the de-growth movement, I wanted to wonder what aligns us if vocation went away as a source of identity and orientation.

Vocation and the market have aligned humans into an orientation that has made it easier to build social structures and hierarchical systems on and through. Or at the very least, social structures and hierarchies have been built on our mutual alignment through vocational identity.

It feels like we’re at a liminal moment where this may not continue to be the case.

History suggests that without work as the primary magnet pulling and aligning the way we organize society, humans may not default to a single alignment but rather disperse across several “true norths”. 

Some may build community, prioritizing kinship, shared living, and belonging. Others will create, turning to art, music, storytelling, and play. Some will reconnect with nature, living more cyclically and slowly. Whereas others may seek deeper meaning, exploring spirituality, philosophy, or self-experimentation. 

What will people be when we are not what we do?