AI is starting to do work that people have spent their whole lives learning how to do. If that work is a big part of who you are, it can feel like more than a threat to your job. It can feel like a threat to your purpose in life.
Knowing your values gives you a beacon to use to navigate the tough times.
In the video at the top of this post, I talk about a podcast I found fascinating, and what I think can help with the anxiety about AI that so many of us are feeling right now.
The podcast was an episode of The Daily from The New York Times. Rachel Abrams interviewed Steven Strogatz, a professor of mathematics at Cornell. They talked about what it's like when AI doesn't just come for your job, but comes for your purpose in life.
In the last year, AI has started to solve mathematical problems that the smartest mathematicians have worked on for decades, and in some cases for centuries. For people who have spent their lives working on those problems, it feels like AI is taking away their purpose. It's an extreme case, but it might be the canary in the coal mine…who knows what industry or field of inquiry will be impacted next?
I made the video right after I listened to this podcast, while it was still fresh, because this is a big part of what my new book is about, and I’m convinced it can help.
I don't have an answer to the big existential questions.
But I really, truly believe that if you know What Matters Most to you, and what your values are, you have a direction to head in when you're struggling, instead of just trying to solve the problem blindly.
That's because your values drive everything you do. You've had them since you were young, and they don't change. A job, a skill, or a title is one of the ways you get more of what you value. So when AI changes the job, your values are still there, and you can start looking for other ways to get more of them, if you know what they are with certainty. Not just with poetic words and good intentions.
I wrote about the inverse of this idea in an earlier post, When Did the Thing You Love Start Feeling Like a Chore? Sometimes you need to switch the values that you are focused on in order to maintain something in your life that you don't want to give up. But in this case, when that something is taken away from you, it's the values it was feeding that can help you find your way.
If you know somebody who's going through an anxious time right now because of AI or any other issue, this post might help them too.
Start by finding out what your values are. Then look for ways to get more of them in your life, at work and outside of it.
Everything gets easier when you know What Matters Most.
My new book walks you through all kinds of ways to identify (and use) your values, and it's available for pre-order now. It's called The Values Map, and I would be very grateful if you pre-ordered a copy. ❤️
