Originally posted on LinkedIn on Nov 3, 2023
Why Work?
I have been spending most of the year working on AI - not the technical aspects, but the policy, philosophy, governance, and risk dimensions. It has made for an interesting year for a technology lawyer.
Friends and colleagues will be familiar with my concerns about AI: inducing an acute lapse in critical thinking, the atomization of work, and stunting the development of young minds who will soon have access to unlimited information without an appreciation of the distinction between information, knowledge, and wisdom.
Another way to put it: when the outward hallmarks of competence are easy to simulate, does the inner drive for true competence remain? Perhaps for those at the top of their craft - but what of the rest?
Today, I came across an interesting passage written by the 20th century English author, and an earlier pioneer in feminist character portrayal, Dorothy Sayer. In “Why Work?” (1949) she writes:
“…to aim directly at serving the community is to falsify the work…The moment you only think of serving other people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains; you begin to think that you have a claim on the community.… But if your mind is set upon serving the work, then you know that you have nothing to look for; the only reward the work could give you is the satisfaction of beholding it’s perfection. The work takes all and gives nothing but itself; and to serve the work is a pure labor of love. The only true way of serving the community is to be truly in sympathy with the community, to be oneself part of the community, and then to serve the work…It is the work that serves the community; the business of the worker is to serve the work.”
I plan to give this notion greater thought.
It offers a profound understanding of the human heart and the elusive nature of purity in our motivations. It suggests nobility in the idea of elevating the value of work - for excellence and competence to be meaningful ends unto themselves. Yes, the enterprise is ideally wholesome, but we should not mistake the wholesomeness of the enterprise with our own. The price of that error is self-importance.
I cannot shake the notion that such ideas, about the importance of work, are at the root of my concerns about AI. As we move towards an AI enabled future, one that is undoubtably more productive, more efficient and filled with many opportunities to transform the way we work today, I hope we continue to find - for the many, not the few - opportunities to “serve the work”. For those of us entrusted with the privilege and influence to structure the pathway of peers and those entering the workforce, let us consider how to place people first, by creating meaningful, strive-worthy, work.
J