AI and the Future of Work: Why Problem Solving Will Matter More Than Professions
My latest analysis on artificial intelligence, jobs and the future of work has been published by HuffPost Italia, where it was also featured on the homepage.
The article challenges the question dominating the AI debate: Will artificial intelligence destroy jobs or create new ones?
We may be asking the wrong question. AI is already doing something potentially more profound: dissolving the boundaries between professions and changing the way we organize human capabilities around problems.
Read the original article on HuffPost Italia
TALKING POINTS
- AI does not know professions. It knows problems.
- AI is enabling task crossover: people increasingly perform tasks traditionally associated with other occupations.
- Work does not disappear. It decomposes and recombines.
- The future of work will reward the ability to connect different disciplines, not simply execute predefined tasks.
- AI lowers the cost of complexity and makes cognitive capabilities accessible to individuals and smaller organizations.
- AI distributes tools. It does not distribute talent.
- Human competitive advantage will increasingly depend on judgement, curiosity, critical thinking and responsibility.
- The question is not simply whether AI will replace humans, but what will make humans increasingly difficult to replace.
WE ARE ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION ABOUT AI AND JOBS
The public debate about AI and employment remains trapped between two opposing predictions. One says artificial intelligence will eliminate millions of jobs. The other argues that, like previous technological revolutions, it will ultimately create new ones.
Both scenarios may contain elements of truth. But they risk missing what is already happening.
A salesperson builds a website. An engineer develops financial projections. A researcher produces communication materials. Activities that until recently belonged to different professional domains are becoming increasingly accessible to the same individual.
The real question, therefore, may not be how many jobs AI will destroy or create. It is how much time we have to reinvent work before work reinvents us.
DO NOT MISS MY OPINION IN THE HUFFPOST
FROM PROFESSIONS TO PROBLEMS
A recent OpenAI report based on around 800,000 professional ChatGPT conversations provides an important clue. A significant share of occupation-specific interactions involve activities normally associated with another profession — a phenomenon OpenAI describes as task crossover.
This matters because modern economies have spent more than two centuries moving in the opposite direction. From Adam Smith’s division of labour onwards, productivity has been built around specialization. Companies created departments. Universities created faculties. Workers acquired professional identities.
AI operates differently. It does not see an organizational chart. It does not care whether a problem belongs to marketing, finance, research, design or communication. It encounters a problem and helps assemble the capabilities required to solve it.
AI does not know professions. It knows problems. And as humans increasingly work alongside AI, we may begin to organize our own work in the same way: less around fixed roles and more around problems to be solved.
READ IT AGAIN: WHAT KEEPS US STILL
WORK DOES NOT DISAPPEAR. IT DECOMPOSES.
This does not mean specialization is over. Expertise will remain essential. But the boundaries surrounding expertise are becoming more permeable. A professional can increasingly move between domains and perform activities that once required an entire team. Not because AI suddenly makes everyone an expert in everything, but because it dramatically expands the range of capabilities an individual can access.
The result may be a shift from fixed job descriptions toward dynamic combinations of skills. Paradoxically, after two centuries of increasing specialization, an almost Renaissance quality may become valuable again: the ability to connect different worlds. Not knowing everything. Knowing how to ask, understand, connect, and judge.
DO NOT MISS MY DISCUSSION WITH A 3-STAR CHEF: THE SECRET OF BALANCE
AI IS DEMOCRATIZING COGNITIVE CAPITAL
An economic consequence also deserves more attention. AI lowers the cost of complexity.
Capabilities that once required departments, specialists and substantial organizational resources can increasingly be accessed by a professional, entrepreneur or small business. This changes the relationship between individuals and organizations. A portion of what we might call cognitive capital — analytical, creative and technical capabilities — is no longer concentrated exclusively inside large institutions. But accessibility should not be confused with ability.
AI distributes tools. It does not distribute talent.
The same technology that amplifies knowledge, curiosity and critical thinking can amplify errors, bias and superficiality. AI is an amplifier. What it amplifies still depends on us.
THE HUMAN ADVANTAGE IS JUDGEMENT
This is why the future of work is ultimately not just a technological question. As machines become better at executing cognitive tasks, human value may increasingly move toward what surrounds execution: understanding context, formulating better questions, connecting disciplines, exercising doubt, taking responsibility and deciding when to trust a machine — and when to contradict it.
The critical skill is therefore not simply knowing how to use AI. It is judgement.
The most successful professionals may not be those who know the most within a narrowly defined domain, but those capable of combining expertise with curiosity and moving intelligently between different domains.
WHAT WILL MAKE HUMANS HARDER TO REPLACE?
Perhaps we should therefore reverse the question. Instead of asking endlessly which jobs AI will replace, we should ask:
What qualities will make humans increasingly difficult to replace?
Judgement. Curiosity. Responsibility. Critical thinking. Creativity. The ability to understand context and connect ideas that previously belonged to different worlds. The greatest transformation produced by AI may not ultimately be the disappearance of work. It may be the disappearance of the assumption that our economic value can be contained within a single job title. For more than two centuries, we organized work around professions.
AI may now be reorganizing it around problems. And the greatest risk may not be that a machine takes our job. It may be that we continue preparing people for a world of work that no longer exists.
AI and the Future of Work: Why Problem Solving Will Matter More Than Professions
