Is AI Revealing That Much of Modern Work Was Never Meaningful?

A 37-year-old professional argues that AI is not a productivity revolution but an 'x-ray,' exposing the lack of meaning in much modern white-collar work.

The tools can draft emails, summarize meetings, and build slide decks in seconds because this work is highly patternable and conventional. The author suggests that if an AI can replicate your output, the output itself 'was never really the thing.'

This raises an uncomfortable question: How much of our work was actually filler, designed to show that work was being done rather than to create real value? The author notes that many careers and identities were built around producing this 'wallpaper.'

What remains valuable, according to the author, are uniquely human skills: knowing what questions to ask, exercising taste and judgment, and engaging in authentic human interactions. These are slower, harder to measure, but ultimately closer to meaningful work.

The core challenge AI presents is forcing individuals to confront what part of their job is genuinely them, and what part was just the price of being in the office.