A quiet anxiety hangs over the American dining table.
Parents are worried that artificial intelligence will replace their jobs. Young people are wondering whether their education will still matter. Many of us are experiencing more existential anxiety. The age of AI could hollow out what is essential about being human: purpose, relatedness, and even joy.
If that fear feels nostalgic, you should. For the past two decades, technology has promised to connect us, empower us, and make our lives better. Instead, we have become more distracted, more isolated, and more exhausted.
The Surgeon General recently reported that about half of American adults experience measurable levels of loneliness. This is as harmful to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The average American checks their cell phone more than 140 times each day. Then, in 2012, when smartphone penetration exceeded 50%, happiness among American youth began to decline sharply and continuously.
Given this history, it's natural to think that AI will only make things worse.
However, I believe the opposite may also be true.
I've been involved in AI for over 16 years, including as OpenAI's Head of Go-to-Market at the launch of ChatGPT. I have spoken in over 250 boardrooms over the past three years in front of approximately 300,000 people. These experiences have taught me that hope and reason should coexist.
If we get this right, artificial intelligence could be the tool that finally gives us back our most precious and limited resource: our time. And in doing so, we may be forced to face the most important issue of our next era: choosing how to live, not work or productivity.
happiness function
For most of modern history, we have measured success by results. We have built an economy optimized for productivity and lives organized around work. We wear our busyness like a badge of honor. “What is your occupation?” is the first question we ask when meeting new people.
But what if productivity is the wrong metric?
I use the term “happiness function” to describe the surprisingly consistent relationship between human happiness and how we use our time. The science here is surprisingly clear. Once basic needs are met, happiness is not proportional to wealth, status, or title. Track relationships, purpose, creativity, and community.
The most convincing evidence comes from the Harvard Adult Development Study, one of the longest-running studies ever conducted on human well-being. For more than 80 years, researchers have followed participants and their families, tracking their physical health, mental health, career outcomes, and life satisfaction.
The conclusion was clear. The strongest predictor of a long, happy, and healthy life was the quality of relationships, not occupational success or financial achievement.
Close relationships protect us from life's inevitable difficulties. Slows down the decline in cognitive and physical functions. They are more important than IQ, genetics, or social class.
This is how the happiness function works.
Mechanism of abundance
To understand why AI can help make that happen, you need to understand what AI is actually changing.
The most transformative impact of artificial intelligence is not speed or automation, but the impact it has on intelligence itself.
Throughout human history, intelligence has been in short supply. For individuals to develop their own abilities, they had to spend years of their lives (and huge amounts of money) on education. To make matters more difficult, this was only possible if you were lucky enough to live near a specialist or a school where you could receive education. But AI is rewriting this agenda, doing for intelligence what the late 19th century did for electricity, turning electricity into a power company.
Before electrification, to illuminate a room after dark, you had to carry candles from room to room or maintain gas lamps. Once electricity arrived, lighting became as easy as flipping a switch.
AI removes the friction in accessing intelligence in a similar way. that's what I call it immeasurable intelligence: Intelligence, available on demand at near-zero cost, is quietly being integrated into everyday life.
This isn't about faster spreadsheets or smarter chatbots. This means each of us can rely on expert support to do everything from planning trips and managing finances to scheduling appointments and prioritizing emails without the cognitive strain that currently permeates our daily lives.
Much of this work is done in the background through AI agents that learn our preferences and act on our behalf. As technology becomes more ambient, the need to constantly stare at a screen decreases. The goal is not to increase engagement, but to decrease engagement.
And the result is time.
The unavoidable effects are: Over time, we need less and less work. It may be the most difficult transition for a society that has long equated self-worth with productivity.
new relationship with work
This change will definitely change the job, and understandably there will be a lot of fear out there.
The World Economic Forum estimates that around 92 million jobs will be lost by 2030, but that 170 million new jobs will also be created in net benefits. Jobs are not gone. That's changing.
There are already signs of an upward trend. Physicians are using AI to reduce administrative overload and spend more time with patients. Researchers are compressing years of analysis into months, accelerating scientific discovery. In countless fields, AI is eliminating menial tasks rather than replacing judgment.
At the same time, as the cost of accessing intelligence falls (this is called inference cost; the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2025 reports that the cost of running some models has fallen by more than 99%), the cost of goods and services will follow suit. Efficiency gains from AI are likely to lead to deflation, lowering the cost of living and reducing the amount of labor needed to maintain it.
The unavoidable effects are: Over time, we need less and less work.
It may be the most difficult transition for a society that has long equated self-worth with productivity.
productivity trap
We have confused doing with being.
This makes sense when productivity defines human worth. However, we are entering a world where repetitive cognitive tasks like processing data, generating reports, and optimizing workflows are becoming a commodity. AI handles them silently and efficiently.
For many, this will feel like a loss of identity.
But if we're honest with the data and ourselves, productivity has always been a terrible substitute for a good life. It serves the economy, not humans.
The happiness function provides another indicator. The question is not what we produce, but how we spend the time we are given.
time to become human
In the pre-AI world, satisfying the happiness function was a luxury. Careers consume calendars. The rest of the time was often entrusted to the glowing screen already in our hands.
AI changes that equation.
When machines take over the tasks that make us tired, we are left with a choice. You can fill the time you get back with more distractions, or you can invest it in things that actually make your life meaningful.
That probably means less screen time and more immersion. Increase creativity and reduce metrics. More community, humor, curiosity, and compassion. Spend more time in nature. Let's spend more time with each other.
The economic question of how the benefits of AI will be distributed remains important. But if unmeasured intelligence continues to expand, the historic struggle for basic survival may finally begin to ease.
The question then will no longer be how hard we work, but how well we live.
AI gives us time. Only we can decide what to do with it.
intelligence is not wisdom
As we enter this new era, it is important to be clear about what AI is and is not.
Artificial intelligence is intelligencedo not have wisdom. Intelligence is calculation. Store information, recognize patterns, and optimize results. Wisdom is something else entirely. It is shaped by experience, empathy, ethics, imagination, and compassion.
AI gives us time. Only we can decide what to do with it.
The arc of human progress has always bent toward greater freedom. At times like these, optimism is not naive, but comes with responsibility.
We are ordinary people with new extraordinary tools. The age of AI doesn’t have to diminish our humanity. If you choose wisely, you can eventually make room for it.
Zack Kass is the former Head of Go-to-Market at OpenAI and the author of the following books: The next renaissance: AI and expanding human potential.
