The era of the artist
I'm building something new...
The machines are learning to think. Soon they will think better than us, faster than us, without fatigue. They will fill our spreadsheets, respond to our emails, and complete our to-do lists. The work that defined human life for generations is ending. By the year 2030, the machines will be doing 90% of the work in 90% of the jobs. And we’re left with the age-old question that suddenly feels more urgent than ever: What are we for?
We've spent centuries believing that only what can be measured matters. Numbers became our gods because they built cities and cured diseases. But they also taught us to largely dismiss everything that couldn't be quantified: beauty, wonder, intuition. We learned to see these as luxuries, as secondary to real concerns, at least when it came to work. This was useful for a while, but it’s not anymore. Now, we have to dig deeper and look beyond what the scientific method can give us.
We could not ask for a better moment in time to recognize that we hold capabilities beyond pure logic. An artist lives within each of us. Humans have a unique capacity to experience the world, respond authentically, and shape reality through conscious attention. To create is ultimately to develop a heightened sensitivity to what moves through you and around you. It's learning to trust your reactions, to let yourself interact with the world at maximum capacity. It’s tapping into your intuition. Your authentic responses, the way you express what you see.
This expression can take infinite forms: writing poetry, building companies, creating a home, even making lunch! What matters is you and the consciousness you pour into the act of shaping, making, creating, and expressing. Those who are able to live this way will be the ones who can make the most difference in the new world. Not because they're special, but because they're awake. They see beyond what is obvious and respond to what the world craves. They are artists, and they’re able to direct all of this unlocked efficiency with their vision.
This is also the blueprint for a happy co-existence with the machines. The machines handle the optimization, we take care of the meaning. They execute, we dream. They calculate, and we create. This beautiful symbiosis will be the seed of everything because when humans live from their creative nature, we build societies that breathe. When we stay disconnected from ourselves, desperately attempting to beat the machines at their own game, we get communities of anxious people managed by algorithms.
The people that become what they are, the artists, will be the architects of what comes next. The Agency exists because we believe that, along with AI alignment, human evolution is our most important problem. And this is what becoming an artist is ultimately about. If we do not increase our awareness and sense of agency, how can we imagine birthing technology that will be empathetic and aligned with our wellbeing? We can’t expect the machines to know what is good for us if we don’t either.
Welcome to the era of the artist. <3
Great stuff, Ida! I agree with everything except the first paragraph. To me this "AI doing most of our work" is just a Silicon Valley pipe dream with a dystopian flare. It's riding the wave of the industrial "efficiency" (read, productivity) fetish, where meaning is important only if it can add to the quantifiable. Personally I'm not touching gen AI for several reasons, but one of the most pressing ones is that I've noticed that it strips me of my agency and opportunities to keep learning by doing.
So to me it's all about rediscovering the meaning and the agency _in work_ instead of automating everything for everyone to become artists. To become artists _in work_. In reality, without a heavy focus on structural changes, the "efficiency" fetish will just push human labor to new things, and the promise of more free time will only be met somewhere at the top, for those who own and control these technologies. Gotta pay to use them, right?
Of course it's not all black and white and some work just makes sense to automate, but the meaning discussion must be extended to work as well. If I understood correctly, you're referring to this too with "building companies, creating a home". All I know is that I find meaning in filling spreadsheets, completing to-do lists, and especially responding to emails that _people_ have sent me.
But you're definitely onto something important here, will be keeping an eye on this space :)
PS. I take it that you've left Sane. Is the project dead now?