Work as Dignity
K-12 and lifelong learning in the age of AGI.
What technologists and AI enthusiasts get wrong about lifelong learning is this:
Lifelong learning is fun when we’re taking Pueblo pottery classes or weekend pickleball lessons. It’s terrifying when our economic viability depends on it.
In America, land of the free and home of “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” free-market mythology, work is dignity. Works confers respect. Work is a bridge to purpose and identity. To be employed isn’t merely to make a living, but to make a life: relate to others, contribute to society, channel our ambitions, find fulfillment.
To work is to earn our place in society.
An implicit belief here is that money is a measure of value. And while capitalism can be a perfectly serviceable religion, it’s an imperfect religion at best. What about the paltry pay of public school teachers, or the unpaid work of domestic care?
Since 2021 when I stopped working full-time on Mochi, I’ve been solving AI/ML distribution problems for software companies from $0 to $5B in revenue. The team, time, and efficiency savings from AI and automation are very real. My employer, for instance, just helped a Fortune 500 customer complete in six months what they’d previously estimated would take 25 years. This is not an anomaly; this is the customer onboarding experience by design. This is measurable, real-world ROI.
Yet I’m most excited about the impact of AI on problems requiring real-world solutions: solutions involving care, connection, growth, grief.
These are the things that automation has yet to touch:
Prediction: As AI takes over more routine or repetitive tasks, the work that remains—deeply human, emotionally complex—will become even more valuable.
If I worked in education again today, I’d design an experience to teach social-emotional learning (SEL), empathetic listening, storytelling, public speaking, how to be critical consumers of information and responsible stewards of the planet.1
It’s hard to imagine this being productized into software and made to scale infinitely.
As it turns out, we can’t just give tablets preloaded with curriculum to kids and expect them to learn collaboration, socialization, citizenship, and resilience. Personalized learning, to be sure, is a noble ideal in the absence of 1:1 or 1:few instruction. But what parent would willingly opt their child out of 2nd-grade phonics in a classroom of 24 other kids in favor of 24/7 Khan Academy Kids on demand?
There’s so much to do in K-12 and early childhood.
My hope is this work becomes more, not less, valued in the age of AGI.
What would you add to this list?