Four roles for humans in an AI world: from human premium to augmented craft
msharmas · x · 2026-10-04
A widely shared thread frames four coexisting roles for humans in an AI world, each personified by a famous figure:
- The Human Premium (Viswanathan Anand): machines have outplayed humans at chess for decades, yet people still pay to watch Anand play — some work gains value precisely because a human does it.
- Augmented Craft (A.R. Rahman): the composer embraced every new music technology, with his genius setting direction and tools raising quality — use AI to amplify what you already do well.
- The Messy Middle (Noshir Kaka): the senior McKinsey partner argues much of consulting is managing people, which is messy and hard for AI to take over.
Core thesis: the future of work may not be about jobs AI cannot do, but jobs humans want only humans to do. The fourth category is cut off in the repost.
More from AGI Musings
- Only 3% of US adults trust shopping agents as Amazon and eBay block them — YvesMulkers · 2026-10-04
- Why This User Won't Touch OpenAI's Dots: Unauditable Memory Is a Privacy Nightmare — curiousinquirer007 · 2026-10-04
- Turing winner Patterson: superintelligence won't leave room for new human jobs — davidpattersonx · 2026-10-04
- LLMs aren't conscious yet but artificial consciousness is buildable, argues anti-pain-vector stance — basedjensen · 2026-10-04
- Ex-Goldman exec Raoul Pal: agentic AI will eat traditional software and SaaS — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-10-04
- Heidel's 'Claude is a sentient god' quip ignites fight over the industry's consciousness assumption — RileyRalmuto · 2026-10-04