Underneath every article in this series is one question.
It isn’t really “Will AI take my job?” It goes deeper than that. It’s the one people ask late at night, usually to nobody in particular. If a machine can do what I do, who am I?
This is the sixth article in a series on the human side of the AI shift. You can start with The Computer Works for Us.
The season I lost something
I’ve asked this question before, long before AI was even on the scene.
I was in a motorcycle accident, and afterward I couldn’t play the piano. The piano had always been part of how I expressed myself, and now it was gone.
I couldn’t type, either. That meant I couldn’t write very well, and I couldn’t work very well. The things I did, the things I was good at, were taken out of my hands.
And I had to be served instead of serving. That was the hardest part for me. I was used to being the one who helped other people out, and now I was the one who needed help.
After that I had a lot of quiet time to myself. I had time to think about my life and to grieve losing something that mattered to me.
What grief taught me
I learned a few things in that season, and I think they carry over to what a lot of people are feeling about AI.
It’s okay to acknowledge that you’ve lost something. Don’t skip that part. If the work you loved is changing, or a skill you spent years building is suddenly worth less, that’s a real loss. Grief is the right response to a real loss.
When you can let it go, you can embrace something new. Sometimes something better. I didn’t know that at first. I only learned it on the other side.
It’s better to let go on purpose than to have it ripped away. My accident forced me to let go. I had no choice. That’s one way to learn the lesson, but there’s a better way, and that’s to see the change coming and cooperate with it, and be willing to risk letting go of the old thing on your own so your hands are open for the new one.
A lot of us are standing at that point with AI right now. We can hold on to the old way of working so tightly that it has to be pried out of our hands. Or we can grieve what we’re losing, let it go on purpose and see what comes next.
Why men feel this so sharply
I see this in everyone, but especially in men.
The Bible says God put the first human in the garden “to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). We were made to work. So it makes sense that our identity gets tied up in what we do, and some of that is healthy. Work is good, and making things is good.
And guys, in general, like doing. We like making. It’s in our wiring.
The trouble with whatever is in your wiring is that it’s also the thing you’ll fight hardest to protect. If doing and making is how you know you matter, then a machine that can do and make is going to feel like a threat to you, and not just to your job.
The issue isn’t the issue
I’ve been in plenty of conversations where people argue about something, and everybody figures out pretty quickly that the issue isn’t really the issue. Underneath it is an insecurity, or a fear, or sometimes pride, and that’s what’s actually driving how someone acts.
I see this all the time in conversations about AI.
Some people are very quick to point out everything AI gets wrong. Sometimes they’re right. But sometimes there’s something much more personal under the critique. They’re worried about their own security. Maybe they’re having trouble paying the mortgage. Maybe they’re afraid AI is going to take their job, and then how will they take care of their family?
That’s deep stuff, and it’s not going to come out in a sprint planning session or a stand-up. Nobody says, “I’m terrified about my mortgage,” when the agenda item is which tool to adopt. So it comes out sideways, as an argument about the tool.
If you’re a leader, remember that. When someone pushes back hard on AI, there may be something else going on. Be curious about their situation. Ask them how they’re doing. Maybe ask over lunch instead of in the meeting.
And if you’re the one pushing back hard, it’s worth asking yourself, honestly, what’s underneath it.
Where worth actually comes from
These are the things I came back to after my accident, and I’m coming back to them again now.
My value was never in what I could do. It’s in who made me and who loves me.
I wrote in the first article that “it’s not the work we produce that gives us value. It’s the One who produced us.” I believe that with my whole heart. God made me and God loves me, and that was true whether or not I could play the piano.
I’ve come to believe something else, too. Our value is relational. We matter because we’re loved and known, by God and by other people. I think that’s part of why this season can feel so heavy. AI makes us more productive, but it often makes us less connected. When the relational parts of life thin out, we lose the very things that remind us we matter, and so we lean even harder on our work to prove our worth, right when a machine is getting good at that work.
That’s backward. Trying to prove your worth by out-producing the machine is a losing proposition. You’d do better to rest your worth on something the machine can’t touch.
You don’t have to share my faith to feel the truth of that. Think about the people you love most. You don’t love them for what they produce. You’d love them just as much if they couldn’t work at all, and the same goes for you.
What to do this week
Name what you’re losing. Write it down. A skill, a way of working, a part of your job you loved. Let yourself grieve it a little.
Ask what you might be gaining. What could your open hands hold next?
Listen for the issue under the issue. In your next heated conversation about AI, yours or someone else’s, ask what’s really driving it.
Check on someone. If a coworker seems unusually angry or anxious about AI, ask them how they’re really doing. Do it somewhere other than a meeting.
Remember who you are. Not what you do. Who made you, and who loves you.
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