Making Space for Change

What if AI is the very answer we have been praying for?

Image by Bianca Rothschild with Midjourney

AI is proving to relieve humans from some very tedious tasks, (yay!)

Tasks that really we don’t want to be doing. Boring, algorithm pleasing (read social media marketing posting), brain.draining.things. Even as a designer, no-one wants to be removing backgrounds with a lasso tool. And AI is also dissolving jobs, that really, humans shouldn’t be doing either. Let’s be real, when did working the drive-through in a USA junk food company ever seem like a good career move for a person. And yes of course people need jobs —in the current game plan.

But what if we could reinvent and inspire people beyond the MacJob?

What if AI task-based solutions where the actual answers to all those tiny prayers uttered by humans in those moments when they wished a thousand wishes they did not have to do what they were doing.

Those times when they wanted to be more than a ‘robot’ in a corporate machine?

The idea of saying people should stay in these jobs doing tasks that robots can do, to me seems absurd and even repressive. Or even if you are doing the grindy tasks in your own startup or small business, praying you could afford to hire someone to help you free up your time and help your business sustain your family.

All these prayers have in some way been given reality with the emergence of AI.

So Why All the Panic and Resistance to AI?

Here’s a thing: People are addicted to doing.

For a number of reasons, but the most universal, modern theme is that we in the West, have been trained with a ‘growth beyond survival’ mindset. Our doing has become who we are, our smarts, our mental skills are what we use to win. And this motivates us to keep going. Right now there is a shift occurring where these mental smarts, knowledge and problem solving are no longer special. Being busy, is a badge people wear with pride.

With generative AI, knowledge is democratized and with it all the hustle we identify with is falling away.

If anything AI has heralded the end of hustle culture. But will we let it go?

In a small trembling voice from the corner of a vast and empty, echoey space you may hear yourself whispering, “So if I’m not what I do, and I’m not identified by my smart brain, who am I?”

And so the gap is revealed.

Can you feel it..?

The freak out slowly working itself up into a panic.

“OMFG.. what am I going to DO!?”

“I can’t just be, I need to be doing something.”

Your Nervous System Starts Lighting Up, Getting Ready to Run

What’s actually in play is that your nervous system, in our hustle culture, is wired for always on adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine.

And when there is a change of speed or even just the hint that the pace is shifting from your daily pattern, your nervous system literally freaks out and feels unsafe. You go into fight, flight, fawn or freeze. The four main stress responses humans experience. And you get stuck. Unable to move or think clearly.

People want to avoid these fear driven states at all costs.

Ignoring, consciously or unconsciously the possibilities that AI offers for freeing up our time, evolving how we work (and even think) and hanging on to what is known. This is one of the dynamics we are looking at collectively with the emergence of AI in the mainstream. Two studies this year show less than 20% of Americans have played with generative AI, and less than 10% have actually adapted it to be useful in their work.

On one hand we have people getting antsy because deep down they know that they may soon have more time on their calendar, but have no capacity for being still inside their own skin to make any good from it. And subsequently will reject the thing that is putting them outside of their comfort zone.

And no its not ADHD.
It’s called, “learn to make friends with your nervous system.”

On the other hand we have people starting to get triggered into insecure attachment behaviors, and essentially getting locked into their amygdala’s stress response because of the looming, humans-doing-robot-tasks, vacuum. And the unfortunate thing is that the amygdala and limbic brain, in this state, shuts down access to the frontal cortex, where all our practical and logical thinking happens.

Where creativity and ideation occur.

So there is no rational mind present, and then the Tiktok video scrolling starts, showing desperate, low-vibe and reactive images of the future. The spiral is lethal this time, I foresee. As humans we have really painted ourselves into a corner with the state of our minds and nervous systems.

All the distracting agents like tobacco, coffee, sugar, alcohol, pain pills, antidepressants, the list goes on, have all destroyed our human capacity to confront, handle and manage our own energy.

A person who cannot handle their own energy is NOT a future ready human…
just sayin’.

AI in the most part offers so much to the world and humanity across health, education, problem solving innovation and more. But it is challenging so much of what we stand on defining what we know and are used to.

There is a challenge we are being presented with right now as humans, and it’s about how we adapt to change and newness, and also the new energy and contexts this profound shift in technology has brought to us. My wish is that all the full moon instagram posts come true, that we can truly let go of things that are outdated and don’t serve us.

The possibilities of so many things changing and transforming for the good are very real right now. And the universe knows we have been praying this change. May we all have the wit to let it happen with ease and flow, and for the greater good.

Be Bold. Be Beautiful.

With love Bianca xo