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Everyone is talking about what AI can do and how quickly it is getting better. When the conversation moves further, it lands on job losses. Very few people are talking about what it does to us — our sense of who we are at work.
Every time a powerful tool has arrived and changed what is possible, the deepest disruption has never been to the work. It has been to the person doing it.
This has happened before. Not once, but repeatedly. And each time, the people who navigated it well asked a harder question: who am I now, and what do I value?
History has some lived experiences worth looking at, to understand how AI will impact our identities.
The GPS and the London Cab Driver
Let us start closer, in the early 2000s, when the GPS arrived. Everyone assumed that it would be a boon to cab drivers and they would be thrilled. What happened was more complicated.
For decades, London taxi drivers had earned their licences by passing an exam called The Knowledge. It was a two-to-four-year process of memorising 25,000 streets, 320 routes, and thousands of points of interest across the city. While the process was tough, earning the licence gave cab drivers a sense of identity and fulfilment. They could proudly claim: “I know this city like no one else does.”
When any driver with a smartphone could navigate the city, that identity of knowing the city better was gone. Cab drivers had to rebuild and, in some cases, rediscover the value they brought — value in the form of safety, judgement about picking routes, and a friendly demeanour. Things that a GPS cannot give you.
The Camera and the Portrait Painter
If you go a little further back, when photography arrived, you will see a similar pattern. Portrait painters were confronted with a machine that could capture a human likeness in minutes. No one would sit for days anymore to have their portrait made.
Painters and artists had to rebuild the value they brought to the table. They reinvented painting in such a profound way that we are still living it. Different genres like Impressionism, Abstraction, and Modern art emerged. The painters who thrived stopped competing with the camera and started asking what painting was actually for.
The Industrial Revolution and the Craftsman’s Pride
In the 1800s, the industrial revolution posed the same question to craftsmen. The weaver, the cobbler, the furniture maker — their mastery lived in their hands. The pride lived in the object created.
When factories could produce in a day what a craftsman produced in a week, the deeper loss was not income. It was the self-identity.
Same pattern in another century! In the fifteenth century, when the printing press arrived, it changed the cost of and access to books. It felt like an economic change, but it was deeper. It redefined how knowledge was transmitted and made accessible.
For scribes, it was not just the loss of jobs but a deeper question: if the machine can do the copying, what exactly am I here for?
AI Is Asking the Same Question — Again
Look closer and you realise AI is posing the same question to professionals everywhere today. Every role will have to go through some version of the history above.
Some roles will have to rediscover the value they bring — as cab drivers had to. Some roles will have to reinvent themselves — as the artists did. Other roles will need a transformation — as the scribes had to.
We tend to frame AI as a technology change. We would do well to remember it is also a question of personal identity and the value we bring. The conversation on AI is less about job security and more about these harder-to-navigate transitions.
Let’s begin asking the right questions over the next few posts to understand this identity aspect better. What am i most proud of in the work i do? What am i valued for in my teams? Where do i get my greatest joy from?
The answers will evolve. Getting the questions right is the task before us. The tool is changing, yes! The real shift, as it has always been, is about you.
