Economists on AI and work: it's identity and meaning at stake, not just income
soumitrashukla9 · x · 2026-10-23
Alex Oleg Imas and Soumitra Shukla publish a Substack essay arguing that work has never been just income minus effort costs—identity, meaning, and agency are wrapped up in what people do. Citing Ezra Klein on his mathematician father and Fukuyama on AI and recognition, they take a historical view of how technological disruption unsettles identity through jobs, closing with William Morris's 1884 line that as long as people can contribute and take pride in their work, the coming decades won't be entirely bleak. Retweeter Gregory Conti notes the troubling corollary: under ASI, how could contribution remain possible—and doesn't that imply halting AI development?
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