The great cognitive migration: How AI is reshaping human purpose, work and meaning

Humans always migrate and survive. As the glacier progressed, people moved when the rivers were depleted, when the cities fell. Their journey was often painful, but required whether they crossed the desert, mountains or the ocean. Today we enter a new kind of migration, not entirely geography, but across cognition.

AI is reconstructing the cognitive landscape faster than any previous technology. Over the past two years, large language models (LLMS) have achieved PHD level performance in many domains. Earthquakes are reshaping our spiritual maps as they disrupt the physical landscape. This speed of change has led to seemingly careful omissions. We know that migration will come soon, but we can’t imagine exactly how and when it will unfold. But there is no doubt that an early stage of incredible transformation is underway.

Tasks previously reserved for educated professionals (authoring essays, writing music, drafting legal contracts, diagnosing illnesses, etc.) are performed by machines at breathtaking speeds. Not only that, modern AI systems can be thought for a long time and thought for a long time to require unique human insights, further accelerating the need for a transition.

For example, in a New Yorker EssayPrinceton’s Professor Graham Barnett, a professor of science history, marveled at how Google’s Notebook Rum created an unexpected lighting connection between the theory of Enlightenment philosophy and modern television ads.

As AI becomes more capable, humans need to embrace new realms of meaning and value in areas where machines are still loose, where human creativity, ethical reasoning, emotional resonance, and weaving of generational meaning is essential. This “cognitive transition” defines, and recognizes, and prepares the future of work, education, and culture, shapes the next chapter in human history.

When machines move forward, humans must move

Just as climate migrants have to leave a familiar environment due to rising tides and increased fevers, cognitive immigrants need to find new terrains where contributions can be worthwhile. But where and how exactly do this?

The Paradox of Morabeck Provides insights. This phenomenon is named after Austrian scientist Hans Morabeck. Hans Morabeck observed in the 1980s that humans felt difficult. Or as the computer scientist and futurist Kaifu Lee has. I said: “Let’s choose to turn machines into machines and humans into humans.”

Moravec’s insights provide us with important clues. People excel in tasks that are intuitive, emotional, and deeply connected to embodied experiences. I feel that it is a feat of recognition and judgment that millions of years of evolution is deeply etched in human nature, recognizing the irony of conversation, and that painting is all melancholy. In contrast, machines that can ace logic puzzles or summarise thousand pages of novels often stumble upon tasks that consider a second nature.

Human domain AI is not reachable yet

As AI moves rapidly, safe terrain for human effort shifts to fabrics of creativity, ethical reasoning, emotional connections, and deep meaning. Human work in a not too distant future will increasingly demand unique human strength, including insight, imagination, empathy, and cultivation of moral wisdom. Like climate migrants seeking new, fertile ground, cognitive immigrants must diagram their courses towards these clearly human realms, even if the old landscapes of labor and learning change under our feet.

Not all work is wiped out by AI. Unlike geographical movements, which may have a more distinct starting point, cognitive movements develop gradually at first and unevenly across different sectors and regions. The spread of AI technology and its impact can take 10 or 2 years.

Many roles that rely on human existence, intuition and relationship building may be less susceptible to influence, at least in the short term. These roles include a range of skilled occupations, from nurses to electricians to frontline service workers. These roles often require subtle judgment, embodied awareness and trust. This is a human attribute that is not always suitable for machines.

Therefore, cognitive transition is not universal. However, the broader changes in the way values ​​and objectives are assigned to human work still ripples outward. Even those whose tasks remain stable may find that their work and meaning have been reshaped by the world of flux.

Some people promote the idea that AI will unleash a rich world where work becomes an option, creativity will flourish, and society will flourish with digital productivity. That future will likely come. But we cannot ignore the monumental transition it requires. Jobs change faster than many people can realistically adapt. Institutions built for stability are inevitably delayed. The purpose is eroded before it is reconsidered. If richness is a promised land, and if a journey to reach it is necessary, a cognitive transition is required.

The uneven road in front

Just like climate movement, not everyone moves easily or evenly. Our schools train students for a world that is disappearing, not something that is emerging. Many organizations are stuck with efficiency metrics that reward repeatable output. And too many individuals will wonder where the sense of purpose in the world can fit in which machines can do what they once proudly do.

Human purpose and meaning can undergo serious and drastic changes. For centuries, we have defined ourselves by our ability to think, reason and create. Now, as the machines take on many of these features, our place and value issues become inevitable. Psychological and social consequences can be severe when AI-driven unemployment occurs on a large scale without the appropriate ability for people to find meaningful new forms of work.

Some cognitive immigrants can fall into despair. Jeffrey Hinton, a 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics scientist in AI, has warned of the potential harms that could come from AI in recent years in his groundbreaking work on the deep learning neural networks that underpin LLMS. in Interview On CBS, he was asked if he was despairing about the future. He said ironically that it was because he found it very difficult to take. [AI] Seriously. He states: “It’s very difficult for us to get our heads into the point that at this very special point in history, everything can change completely in a relatively short amount of time. A change of scale that we’ve never seen before. It’s hard to absorb emotionally.”

There is a path ahead. It has started by some researchers and economists, including MIT economist David Autor Explore AI is a way to ultimately help rebuild middle class jobs by expanding what humans can do rather than replacing human workers. But getting there requires intentional design, social investment and time. The first step is to allow a transition that has already begun.

Migration is rarely easy or fast. Often, it will take generations to fully adapt to new environments and reality. Many individuals will struggle through the multi-stage sadness process of denial, anger, negotiation, depression and, finally, acceptance before moving towards new forms of contribution and meaning. And some people never move completely.

Addressing change, both at the individual and social level, is one of the biggest challenges in the AI ​​era. The age of AI is not only about building smarter machines, but also about the benefits they offer. It is also about migrating towards a deeper understanding and embracing what makes us human.

Gary Grossman is the EVP of Technology Practice Edelman Global lead at the Edelman AI Center of Excellence.