Is the age of “jobs” ending?

Thoughts on post-work philosophy and some related reading.

What If the Age of “Jobs” Is Over?

At some point, it stops feeling like a headline and starts feeling like your life.

Not in a doomscrolling kind of way, but in that creeping realization that most of the work we’ve been trained to do, branded ourselves around, and designed our lives around, might not matter in the same way 3 years from now. And not because we got lazy. Because the whole system moved.

I’ve been thinking hard about the future of work, and more specifically, what happens when “work” as we know it stops being the default way humans create value, earn income, or organize society. This is the philosophical angle, not just the economic one. Post-work, not just post-office.

There’s a rich body of thought that’s worth digging into on this topic. Below is my distilled take on some of the key ideas, along with a reading list that covers post-work philosophy from some different angles.

The Big Questions That Keep Coming Up

What if automation doesn’t just change jobs, but makes them optional?

This isn’t just about AI doing what we do. It’s about whether there’s still a reason to organize society around paid labor. What happens when machines don’t just take tasks, but take away the reason for organizing your life around a job in the first place?

What if income needs to be separated from employment?

If there aren’t enough traditional roles to go around, and if AI makes most of them unprofitable or unnecessary, then the next step isn’t job retraining. It’s building an economy where people can still live, contribute, and matter without their entire self-worth being tied to work.

What replaces work as a source of identity, purpose, or contribution?

We’ve been taught that work equals meaning. But what if that equation was never as true as we thought? Some philosophers and economists argue that removing the pressure to “earn your place” could actually open space for more meaningful, more voluntary contributions. Contributions that are creative, relational, local, even weird.

Some Interesting Reads

These are some reads that are meant to be bold, thoughtful, and in some cases radically liberating.

Post-Work: What It Is, Why It Matters & How We Get There

Helen Hester & Will Stronge

This book tries to offer a blueprint for a world where automation, care work, and freedom coexist. UBI + 30-hour weeks + universal access to rest and creativity.

Debating a Post-Work Future

Edited by Denise Celentano et al.

A true philosophical roundtable: multiple thinkers from different schools arguing whether post-work is liberation, nihilism, or something in between. Read this if you want both sides.

Automation and the Future of Work

Aaron Benanav

Benanav throws cold water on the “robots are coming for your job” panic and makes a subtler argument: even without fancy tech, demand for labor is drying up. It’s structural and potentially fixable.

Moral Ambition

Rutger Bregman

Less about escaping work and more about redirecting effort. Bregman makes the case that we should aim our time and talent at high-impact problems—not corporate ladder games.

Bullshit Jobs

David Graeber

If you’ve ever felt like your job exists only to make someone else feel important, this one will hit. It’s cathartic, funny, and often profound.

Universal Basic Income: What Everyone Needs to Know

Zwolinski & Fleischer

A no-BS breakdown of UBI as a response to the end of work: how it works, who it helps, and what the risks are.

Where I’m Landing (For Now)

I don’t think post-work means we stop doing hard things. I think it means we stop doing pointless things just to earn the right to exist. If we can separate income from employment, maybe we can redesign life around curiosity, care, and contribution, instead of just productivity. And AI might actually help us do that.

Not by giving us jobs, but by giving us a better way to ask: What would I do if I didn’t have to work to survive?

If you’re in the same headspace, I’d love to know what you’re reading, questioning, or building toward.