If Every Task Changes, Is It Still the Same Job?

Work as the Ship of Theseus

There is a great thought experiment called the Ship of Theseus. It poses the question: if you replace every board on a ship, do you have a new ship or the same ship? This is a great way to reflect on the future of work.

We all understand that work is changing, and that figuring out how AI agents and humans will coexist is key to creating an explosion in labor productivity. Reid Hoffman calls this the Cognitive Industrial Revolution, citing the work of Jiajie Zhang, PhD.

The thing is, most of us are not very good at understanding the first principles of work. Often, org design and job role creation are exercises in additive/incremental thinking—or worse, based on the belief that having more of the same will increase outcome velocity, even though there is little evidence that productivity is linear. In fact, larger teams can carry real risks of diminishing returns.

This is why I believe we need to spend more time understanding and measuring work design. By understanding work, we can begin to observe the real changes in how it is done. As we layer the promise of AI agents onto our workflows, we begin to recognize that we have the opportunity to redefine how we leverage our work inputs—both human and machine—to expand value creation.

I am no longer in the camp that a "human with AI" will replace the job of a human without AI. I believe the entire job will change. On some level, I think we all understand this, but we make ourselves feel better by focusing on these passive framing exercises. I believe we would all be better served by recognizing that everything is changing, and by using this liminal space to ground ourselves in the value we bring to work. That value is best maximized by our unique adaptability.

We have adapted our work many times in our careers. Most of us managed to work before there were smartphones or video conferences, digital banking, etc. Some of us worked before there were emails, electronic payroll deposits, the internet, google and all of us survived more than a year in the awkward COVID no mans land of social isolation.

We can and will adapt and thrive, but we will have much more agency when we give up the comfort of pessimism and move toward the reality that things are speeding up. We need to remind ourselves that our humanity is powerful, adaptive, and critical. Let’s not cheapen our future by holding on to the way we work today.

Let’s invent the future of work in a way that positions us to thrive—on purpose.