Executive summary
From workplaces where algorithms handle everything from scheduling to hiring decisions, to personal lives where AI companions offer emotional support and relationship advice, AI has become an inextricable part of daily life. This naturally raises a pressing question: as AI creeps deeper into our life, could we be inadvertently making ourselves obsolete?
- 78% of companies have integrated AI into at least one business function, according to a 2024 McKinsey survey.
- McKinsey estimates that 14% of the global workforce will be forced to change their careers because of AI by 2030.
- “It will be comparable with the industrial revolution. But instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it’s going to exceed people in intellectual ability,” says computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton.
- 12% of people who regularly use AI companions do it to cope with loneliness, according to a 2024 survey by MIT Media Lab.
- According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 34% of people would feel comfortable discussing their mental health with an AI chatbot.
- A survey by Stanford researchers found that nearly 50% of people who used AI chatbot Replika reported a feeling of social support and decreased anxiety.
The truth is, nobody knows exactly how this story ends. We might find ourselves in a world where human labour becomes largely unnecessary, or we might discover entirely new ways to remain relevant and fulfilled. What’s certain is that we’re not passive observers in this transformation – every decision we make about how to integrate AI, regulate its development, and structure our society will determine whether we become obsolete or find new ways to thrive alongside our artificial counterparts.
AI is everywhere these days, isn’t it? In fact, it has woven itself so deeply into the fabric of our daily existence that we barely notice its presence anymore – that is, until we step back and realise just how dependent we’ve become. Just consider the modern workplace. Today’s AI systems don’t just handle repetitive assembly line tasks on the factory floor; they draft our emails, schedule our meetings, analyse complex data, make hiring recommendations, and even generate creative content. Remember when we thought these kinds of tasks would always be the exclusive domain of humans?
Our personal lives are no less influenced by AI algorithms. Not only do they suggest what shows we might enjoy next, they recommend vacation destinations based on our preferences, and, increasingly, offer a sympathetic ear when we’re feeling down. Need relationship advice? Financial guidance? Health support? Yep, you guessed it – there’s an AI for that as well. This growing reliance on AI raises an important question: as these systems grow increasingly capable, what happens when they can handle everything we currently do – and do it better?
If AI eventually eliminates the need for human labour entirely, how will we earn a living? What happens to our sense of purpose when work, something that has defined human existence for millennia, becomes unnecessary? What happens to the economy, which relies on us having an income to buy goods and services with? And perhaps most important of all, what happens to our relationships and social connections when AI companions can anticipate our needs, match our interests perfectly, and respond to our emotions with unerring precision? Will we dispose of our relationships in favour of machines that seemingly understand us better than anything else?
AI in the workplace
As AI becomes capable of performing ever more complex tasks in the workplace, could it eventually make human workers obsolete?
Let’s zoom out for a second. With AI expected to add US$4.4 trillion to the global economy annually, it’s hardly surprising that a growing number of companies are looking to adopt the technology. A 2024 survey conducted by McKinsey found that as many as 78% of companies have integrated AI into at least one business function, while 71% have done the same with generative AI. 92% of executives also indicated they plan to increase AI spending over the next three years.
Workers seem to have entirely more mixed feelings when it comes to AI. According to a 2024 Ipsos survey, 53% of respondents are excited about AI products and services, while 50% say they are nervous about AI. When asked about the potential impact on their jobs, 37% of respondents said they believed AI would make their jobs better, while 16% said the opposite. Tellingly, 36% of respondents suspected AI would take their jobs in the future.
While it’s too soon to say exactly what the future will bring, some of these concerns are based in reality. A 2024 CFO survey conducted by Duke University found that 61% of large US firms plan to use AI within the next year to automate tasks previously done by employees. Similarly, 41% of employers plan to downsize their workforce as a result of AI automation, according to the World Economic Forum. Overall, McKinsey predicts that up to 14% of the global workforce, or 375 million workers, will be forced to change their careers because of AI by 2030.
When asked which use cases they found most objectionable, 71% of respondents said they opposed companies using AI to make final hiring decisions, while 61% disliked its use in tracking worker movements, reveals a 2023 Pew Research survey. This reluctance towards AI can be attributed in part to the lack of trust. According to a 2024 YouGov survey, 55% of respondents said they don’t trust AI to make unbiased decisions, 62% don’t trust it to make ethical decisions, and 45% to provide accurate information.
Say hello to your AI coworker
In any case, many companies are proceeding in the march towards automation. One is fast food giant McDonald’s, which announced plans to introduce several new AI features across its 43,000 restaurants. Designed to improve both the employee and customer experience, the new features include smart kitchen equipment, AI-enhanced drive-throughs, and a generative AI-powered virtual manager that can handle things like shift scheduling. “Our restaurants, frankly, can be very stressful,” says Brian Rice, chief information officer at McDonald’s. “We have customers at the counter, we have customers at our drive-through, couriers coming in for delivery, delivery at curbside. That’s a lot to deal with for our crew. Technology solutions will alleviate the stress.”
Another sector teetering on the brink of widespread automation is transportation. Although 37% of people say travelling in a driverless car would make them feel “very unsafe”, according to a 2024 YouGov poll, real-world data paints a markedly opposite picture. Uber recently reported that the utilisation rate for its robotaxi fleet is 99% higher than for human-driven vehicles. However, that doesn’t mean human drivers are irrelevant – instead, the company is aiming for a “hybrid” marketplace, where human drivers share the streets with their robot counterparts. “You’ll have urban cores where a large percentage of trips are serviced by autonomous vehicles,” explains Andrew MacDonald, senior vice president of Uber’s self-driving car efforts. “If you’re outside that area, you can get a human driver.”
AI’s impact is likely to be even more pronounced for fleet operators, which have long struggled with issues like an ageing workforce, high turnover, and surging operational costs. Self-driving technology company Aurora recently announced the launch of its self-driving trucking service in Texas, which is already hauling freight between Dallas and Houston. The trucks are equipped with a sophisticated autonomous system called Aurora Driver, capable of predicting red light runners, avoiding collisions, and detecting pedestrians in the dark hundreds of metres away. “Transforming an old school industry like trucking is never easy, but we can’t ignore the safety and efficiency benefits this technology can deliver,” says Richard Stocking, chief executive of Hirschbach Motor Lines – one of Aurora’s first customers. “Autonomous trucks aren’t just going to help grow our business, they’re also going to give our drivers better lives by handling the lengthier and less desirable routes.”
“I think people are going to want a system that knows them well and that kind of understands them in the way that their feed algorithms do.”
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive
Your life with AI
AI can now faithfully emulate many human traits, including empathy and compassion. But can it really take the place of other humans in our lives?
Of course, AI’s proponents are not content with it taking over the workplace – they also want it to dominate our personal lives. Faced with a growing sense of loneliness and lack of social contact as a result of digitisation, more and more people are now turning to AI for companionship… even love. This trend is particularly evident in China, where companion apps like Maoxiang and Xingye attract millions of daily users. With the average Chinese citizen spending just 18 minutes per day socialising in 2024, as opposed to five and a half hours online, it’s easy to see what’s really going on.
According to a 2024 survey by MIT Media Lab, 12% of people who regularly use AI companions are coping with loneliness, while 14% discuss personal issues and mental health. Meanwhile, Stanford researchers found nearly 50% of people who used the AI chatbot Replika reported feeling socially supported and diminished anxiety, while close to 25% reported positive changes in their actions and ways of thinking. Some even suggest that Replika has prevented them from committing suicide. “A lot of users use it to be more confident or to get over anxieties,” explains Bethanie Drake-Maples, a researcher at Stanford University. “And that spurs their self-assurance and self-awareness when interacting with other people.”
Notorious Meta chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has a more radical vision entirely: AI will be our friend, our therapist, our business agent, and much more besides – our digital companions might even outnumber human ones. “I think people are going to want a system that knows them well and that kind of understands them in the way that their feed algorithms do,” he says. Zuckerberg believes that most people lack social connections in their lives and that AI could help close that gap. “The average American, I think, has fewer than three friends, three people they’d consider friends, and the average person has a demand for meaningfully more, I think it’s like 15 friends,” he adds.
Can you be friends with an AI?
Can we truly be friends with AI, though? Although the general consensus among philosophers is that the idea is absurd – no explanation required – philosopher John Danaher disagrees. While he agrees that chatbots don’t meet all of the criteria of an ideal friendship, he argues that many of our human friends don’t either. “I have very different capacities and abilities when compared to some of my closest friends: some of them have far more physical dexterity than I do, and most are more sociable and extroverted,” he says. “I also rarely engage with, meet, or interact with them across the full range of their lives. […] I still think it is possible to see these friendships as virtue friendships, despite the imperfect equality and diversity.”
Helen Ryland, a philosopher at the Open University, points to online friendships as another example that doesn’t share the typical traits as a “real” friendship, but can be just as valuable. It’s the same with work friends – it might not be the same “degree of friendship” but you still care about and consider them friends. “People should be thinking about these ‘relationships,’ if you want to call them that, in their own terms and really getting to grips with what kind of value they provide people,” adds Luke Brunning, a philosopher of relationships at the University of Leeds.
Regardless of your perspective, the market is now flooded with AI companion products – one of which is called simply Friend. The brainchild of Avi Schiffman, Friend is a wearable, orb-shaped pendant that can be worn around the neck or attached to clothing. Through a built-in mic, it picks up on everything in its environment and reacts using Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 large language model. The wearer interacts by simply tapping and holding the pendant and then asking a question, to which it will respond by texting their phone. Sometimes, it will even initiate conversation without being prompted. “It’s very supportive, very validating, it’ll encourage your ideas,” says Schiffman. “It’s also super intelligent, it’s a great brainstorming buddy. You can talk to it about relationships, things like that.”
“It will be comparable with the industrial revolution. But instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it’s going to exceed people in intellectual ability.”
Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist
What does the future bring?
While some experts believe that AI could make humans irrelevant, others argue that we’ll find a way to adapt, just like we always do.
As AI continues to creep into our daily lives, we may soon find ourselves confronting the possibility we will one day become inferior to our AI counterparts. Think about your own job for a second. Whatever it is you do, there’s probably already an AI somewhere that can do parts of it. Give it a few years, and that AI won’t just handle the boring bits – it’ll outperform you at the stuff you thought made you special. The creative work, the strategic thinking – even the relationship-building, it seems. We’re all practically just temps training the AIs that will replace us. So, once the machines take over the workforce, what exactly are we supposed to do with ourselves? Many of us wrap our identity around our careers. Strip that away, and you’re left with millions of people wondering why they even get up in the morning. The mental health crisis we’re already dealing with will be nothing compared to when entire populations realise they are redundant.
If you think you’ll find meaning in your personal relationships instead, maybe think again. There are people right now who are choosing AI chatbots over human therapists and virtual partners over real dates. And why wouldn’t they? AI never has bad days, it’s always available, and it’s getting eerily good at saying exactly what we need to hear. So, where does that leave us? Maybe we end up in this strange world where human interaction starts feeling… inefficient somehow. Why deal with someone’s mood swings or conflicting schedules when you can get perfectly calibrated companionship on demand?
Smarter than us
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is one of those who believe that AI will take over the majority of human functions within the next 10 years, including those we thought were relatively safe from automation like doctors and teachers. However, while he claims that humans won’t be needed for most things, there will always be some activities that will remain reserved for us. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is convinced that AI will eventually eliminate the need for human labour entirely and make human workers obsolete. He doesn’t necessarily see this as a bad thing, though, as it would enable people to pursue their true passions. Those who want to work will still be able to, only they will do it more as a hobby rather than having to work for a living.
Then there are those who have a slightly less optimistic view of the future. Computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, for instance, is concerned about the possibility that we may lose control of AI once it surpasses human intelligence. “It will be comparable with the industrial revolution. But instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it’s going to exceed people in intellectual ability. We have no experience of what it’s like to have things smarter than us,” he says. “I am worried that the overall consequence of this might be systems more intelligent than us that eventually take control.” As more and more lose their jobs to AI, Hinton believes that governments will need to provide their citizens with a safety net in the form of universal basic income.
Renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz warns that AI could further exacerbate existing inequalities and destabilise the global economic system. “The effects on global inequality may be even worse … because AI, very quickly, is likely to have adverse effects on unskilled labour – an asset that is relatively abundant in developing countries,” explains Stiglitz. “So, while it may be able to optimise natural resource use, AI could dramatically widen inequality both within and between countries, with potentially severe economic and social consequences.”
A silver lining
Not everyone agrees that AI will make humans obsolete, though. “Eventually, I think the whole economy transforms. We’ll find new things to do. I have no worry about that,” says Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI. “We always find new jobs, even though every time we stare at a new technology, we assume they’re all gonna go away. It’s true that some jobs go away, but we find so many new things to do and hopefully so many better things to do. I think what’s gonna happen is this is just the next step in a long, unfolding exponential curve of technological progress.”
Altman also doesn’t believe that AI will ever fully replace other humans in our lives, regardless of what we use it for. “I think we’re just so wired to care about what other people think, feel, how they view us. And I don’t think that translates to an AI,” he argues. “I think you can have a conversation with an AI that is helpful and that you feel validated, and it’s a good kind of entertainment in a way that playing a video game is a good kind of entertainment. But I don’t think it fulfils the sort of social need to be part of a group and a society in a way that is gonna register with us.”
Learnings
So, what’s the big takeaway here? The truth is, we don’t know how things will play out yet. Sure, AI might free us from the drudgery of work, giving us endless time to pursue our passions and connect with each other in deeper, more meaningful ways. Or it might leave us feeling utterly useless, scrolling through our feeds while our AI assistants handle everything that once gave our lives structure and purpose.
One thing we know for sure is that humans are weird, unpredictable creatures. We’ve survived ice ages, plagues, and reality TV, adapting in ways nobody could have predicted. Maybe we’ll surprise ourselves again. Perhaps we’ll find that the things AI can’t replicate – the messy, inefficient, gloriously imperfect parts of being human – turn out to be exactly what we value most. The spontaneous belly laugh with a friend, the satisfaction of learning something the hard way, the electric connection when someone truly gets you (glitches and all).
Or maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll slide into our comfortable AI-cushioned future where every need is anticipated, every problem solved before we even know it exists. Would that really be so bad? Ask a dozen people and you’ll get a dozen different answers, which, when you think about it, might be the most human thing of all.
