It’s not news that artificial intelligence is here to push a lot of us out of the job market. As a writer, my competition is increasingly showing itself to be made up of bots that are able to crank out articles faster and better than what I thought possible. However, I’m not the only one in danger. Taxi drivers, call centre employees and even doctors (yes that is right, general practitioners) are all susceptible to the growing hand of AI and automation. As unsettling as this may be, the big question we should be asking ourselves is if AI grows to push most of us out of even specialist jobs, what will human beings be left to do with themselves?

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Let’s be honest, a lot of us complain about how terrible our jobs are and how overworked we feel. We whine and moan about how we wish we had more days off and hate it when Monday pops up at the end of the weekend. Though many of these feelings are valid, many of us have no idea what we would do given more free time and freedom to do whatever the hell we wanted.

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Outside of socially expected activities like clubbing, attending religious worship, going to the nail spa, or watching rugby games with the boys, many of us lack actual hobbies and interests that do not require other people’s involvement or the spending of money to pay for an activity to pass the time. Sure, some might say bingeing Netflix or going to the gym count, which are in fact valid points, but you need a job to pay for both of those things.

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So circling back to the main point, in the event that we get pushed out of the job market and hopefully, the robots give us just enough allowance to cater for our basic needs, what are we doing with ourselves? What are we doing with each other that engages our minds and calls on our mental capacities in a way that burns 6 to 8 hours of our day, consistently?

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I personally have no answers to any of these questions, but I definitely think this is something we need to be thinking about. By the year 2050 (which actually isn’t too far away btw) we will be living in a world strikingly different from this one, and there is a good chance many of today’s jobs will be a thing of the past. What will we do then?

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It might not all be so simple.

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