If AI Pays the Bills, What is the Future of Purpose?

Arjun Garg

Jun 7

5 min read

Will Artificial Intelligence take our jobs? We’ve all heard the question. It's a reasonable short-term concern. Every month seems to bring a new model operating at a previously unthinkable level, and the world's leading AI experts and CEOs openly discuss a future where most human labor is automated.

But there is perhaps a more intriguing question, looking much further into the future: what happens when AI succeeds? What happens to us, assuming AI creates immense wealth and solves our economic problems, minimizing the need to work?

The answer is not a utopia, unless humanity proceeds very carefully. Even the most ideal forms of financial satisfaction for all fail to address the loss of meaning in human life.

First, let’s rewind and explore how AI might reach this point.

The Greatest Wealth Creation in History & Distribution Implications

There is no doubt that AI will generate wealth at an unprecedented scale. Many economists believe that trillions of dollars will be pumped into the economy in the coming years. In 2023, Goldman Sachs predicted that AI would eventually increase annual global GDP by 7%, and the technology has done nothing but shock the world ever since.

However, wealth creation does not in any way indicate equitable wealth distribution. Historically, quite the opposite has occurred! Many compare the development of AI to the Industrial Revolution: although standards of living increased overall, the divide between the rich and the poor only grew. If everyone is climbing, but the people ahead climb faster, catching up is exponentially more difficult.

Furthermore, AI may exaggerate this pattern even more than the Industrial Revolution and other historical processes. Whereas the steam engine aided human muscles and the internet aided communication, AI reinvents thought itself. The distinction matters! Never before has technology tried to surpass all human capabilities, as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) intends to do.

Wealth and power may be concentrated among the tiny minority who own and control AI infrastructure. And if we reach a point where AGI truly manages any task better than a human, many jobs could disappear. What an unappealing future for the majority of the population!

Of course, there is reason for optimism too. AI is fundamentally software. Open-source models, inexpensive tools, and widespread access to technology may allow far more individuals to leverage AI than was possible with previous industrial technologies.

Even more strikingly, enthusiasts envision a utopian society centered around financial freedom for everyone as AI solves the world’s problems. Surely there’s no issue in replacing jobs if people don’t need to work, right?

Wrong - there are many cons to a society that doesn’t struggle.

Universal Basic Income: A “Utopian” Solution

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is one of the most heavily discussed ideas to solve the future inequality crisis and establish a utopian society.

The concept is straightforward: every citizen receives a regular payment regardless of employment status. Supporters argue that as AI polarizes wealth distribution and reduces the need for human labor, society needs new mechanisms to ensure economic security. With UBI, working for money wouldn’t be necessary to survive.

In many ways, the logic is compelling. If AI generates much of society's wealth, why shouldn't everyone benefit from that prosperity? If AI solves world problems, why should humans bother? If AI can do the work, why should humans need to work to survive?

Expectedly, there are economic debates as to whether UBI can practically be applied; analysts express concerns that it’s too expensive or may cause inflation, while some disagree. But while these debates are important, cheerleaders of “utopian” societies where AI does everything miss the deeper disturbance.

The Value of Work

Modern-day work serves two functions: income and meaning.

The first is obvious, and in a future with advanced, benevolent AI, work may be unnecessary for the survival that current income provides. However, work also provides purpose. It delivers opportunities for mastery, achievement, social connection, and contribution.

A future in which everyone's basic material needs are met sounds attractive; fewer people struggling to survive is unquestionably a good thing… But humans are not machines whose only requirements are food, water, and shelter. We seek purpose. We seek challenge, and goals worth pursuing.

In his “Magnifica Humanitas,” Pope Leo XIV captures the idea soundly: the value of human beings cannot be reduced to economic output. Technological progress should be measured not only by efficiency, but by its impact on human dignity.

However, there is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube. AI shows no signs of slowing down.

Much of our identity is tied to what we do. If AI advances past all human capabilities, the real problem is: what will we do?

Small-scale UBI pilot programs have generally improved financial security and reduced economic stress, but individuals receiving free money have not often sprouted an entrepreneurial spirit or a renewed curiosity for their passions. UBI might help us eat and drink, but not much else.

If everything is easy, does anything matter? Can humanity really handle a future where we aren’t needed to sustain ourselves?

Science Fiction’s Relation

These are not new questions! Science fiction has explored them for years.

Stories like Star Trek imagine a post-scarcity civilization where people are liberated from mundane labor and free to pursue art, science, exploration, and personal growth. In these futures, technology expands human potential.

On the other hand, stories like WALL-E paint a darker picture. People become passive consumers, disconnected from struggle and dependent on systems they don't understand or control.

One of my favorite examples is Neal Shusterman's Scythe series. In that world, a benevolent AI has solved traditional human problems like disease, poverty, and death. Yet the story repeatedly asks a deeper question: when survival is no longer the central challenge of life, what gives life meaning?

The technology in these stories is often similar. The difference is cultural; the difference is how humanity chooses to respond. I recommend that any AI enthusiast or visionary dives into both utopian and dystopian possibilities for the future through literature and media.

The Genie Is Out of the Bottle

Humanity will not abandon the development of AI. Even slowing the technology is unlikely, as the incentives for progress are too large and its capabilities are improving too quickly. Thus, the most important debate is no longer whether AI should be developed or whether AI will steal our jobs; the focus must be how society should adapt to its inevitable growth.

Of course, adaptation will involve economics, politics, education, and regulation. But it will also involve something more fundamental: as a species, we must think carefully about what it means to live a meaningful human life.

For thousands of years, work has been one of the primary ways we create meaning in our lives. If machines increasingly perform the work, we will have to answer existential questions that no civilization has ever faced before. Not only governments and policymakers, but also citizens and creators of AI, should turn their full attention to these questions assuming AI develops as intended.

If we completely outdo ourselves with technology, how can we preserve purpose? In other words, given what AI could become, what should we choose to become ourselves?

Sources

4 Comments

Thea Clarkberg

Jun 18

Very interesting thoughts! Calls to mind the Doctor Who episode "Kerblam!" Maybe I'm an optimist, but I hope that when so much of the world is automated, the value of human connection and creativity will increase due to scarcity. The highest paying jobs will go to those who are most genuine, most creative, most "human," and that will create a sense of purpose. And so paradoxically, maybe AI will be a technology that is so great that it devalues technology itself. So then, the question becomes: What does it mean to be human? To inhabit a body? To exist in a place, a community, and ecosystem? To connect to the world and its mycelial web?

Jun 21

Replying to

I love the connection to Doctor Who! An optimistic point of view about the future is never a bad thing :) Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and thanks for reading!

Ritesh Gupta

Jun 14

Very thoughtful article Arjun!

Thank you!