Hey there,

Over the past couple weeks we’ve talked in depth about some of the big wins and big challenges created by AI. Things like the impressive medical advances that literally save lives, and also the tricky (but hopeful) process of creating enough clean energy to make it all possible without pollution.

But when I talk to my 12-year-old son about AI, it’s generally not about a job-pocalypse or the short-term trade-offs we can expect in the next few years. These are things that society and governments will be figuring out while he’s in high school. Instead, I focus on the longer term – what the AI revolution is going to mean for him as an adult.

I am preparing him for a world where work will mean something significantly different than it does today. And because so many of us get at least some of our life’s purpose from our careers, that means the definition of purpose is changing too.

When I look at the team here at Innovating with AI, I can already see glimmers of this change. Because they’re exposed to AI at work every day in an optimistic but balanced way, they can embrace reductions in busywork without fearing for their jobs. Because they get a front-row seat to the coolest new ideas and software, they can apply the productivity wins to their personal life as well as their workdays. The upshot is that they have both more ability and more headspace to contribute to their communities, families, and causes they care about.

This is a key distinction from the pre-AI internet era. Looking back, I think the tech of the 2000s and 2010s resulted in increased ability but decreased headspace. This manifested as burnout and a sense of desperation to escape the rat race. It was easy to imagine having more freedom and flexibility with your job, but also very difficult to make it happen – leading to frustration that a life with more freedom and purpose was just out of reach. And it’s way more stressful to feel like something is slightly out of reach than to write it off (as previous generations did) as generally unrealistic and unobtainable.

So when I talk to my son about this, here’s how I frame the future:

• Doctors will be able to make better, faster decisions – so their life’s work will mean saving more lives and helping more people
• Community leaders will be able to do the cumbersome work (like waging legal battles against industrial polluters) better and faster – which means they can win more cases and help more people
• Teachers and students will have not just knowledge, but learning strategies and custom tutoring, at their fingertips – which means pretty much anyone can learn pretty much anything quickly and cheaply

In short, it’s a world where you can learn almost anything, create almost anything and do almost anything. Not in a distant sci-fi future, but by the time my son is in college. People will still have the same number of hours in a day, but they’ll be able to use those hours to help far more people – and have time left over to take care of themselves, too.

That, to me, is what it’s all about. Real freedom to live life doing whatever makes it meaningful for you – be it learning a new skill, spending more time with people you care about, or seeing what you’re really capable of.

If you've been an IWAI reader for some time, then you already know I strongly believe that I, you, and everyone on this planet are more than the way we pay our bills.

Sure, money matters, but ultimately, it's just one part in a bigger picture of freedom – which, if you zoom in, looks like 4 different kinds of freedom: