AI is everywhere. It is used for almost everything. Many people argue that it will make humans less intelligent.
Perhaps the opposite is true.
Perhaps AI will save us from our obsession with work and give us something we have been losing for decades: time to think.
Our world is built on competition. Companies compete with each other for customers, lower prices, better products and the best talent. Inside those same companies, employees compete for promotions, recognition and rewards.
Somewhere along the way, we accepted the idea that executives should always be busy.
History reminds us that this is far from normal.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) spent more than thirty years working for the East India Company, one of the most powerful organizations of his time. He eventually became one of its most senior executives and earned more than twenty times the average income.
Yet during those same years, he wrote some of the most influential books in philosophy and economics, including A System of Logic (1843) and Principles of Political Economy (1848).
How?
Because many afternoons at the company were quiet. He could sit at his desk and work on his own ideas. Imagine doing that today. Today, every minute must be accounted for. At the time, no one questioned his work ethic.
Ancient Greece offers another example. Much of the physical labour was performed by slaves, leaving citizens with time for politics, philosophy, mathematics and science. While this society was built on an unacceptable institution, it also reminds us of an important truth: civilization advances when people have time to think.
Perhaps AI can become our first ethical workforce.
Not to replace humanity, but to free it.
Free us from repetitive cognitive work so we can spend more time creating, discovering, teaching, caring and solving the problems that matter.
The greatest promise of AI may not be greater productivity.
It may be the return of thinking.