Last week, over drinks, a new friend shared this:
Their firm just laid off a sharp, experienced paralegal and replaced her with a suite of AI tools handling contract drafting and legal research. Her replacement? AI. The work hadn’t disappeared; it had just become redundant because one of the partners heard about a new legal AI tool called Harvey. They liked what they saw and made the move: her employers chose the tool over the person. Tech over trust. Cheaper over better.
It wasn’t just a story; it was a warning. I could feel the weight of someone being quietly replaced. It made me realize: this won’t be rare for long. These stories are coming for all of us.
Because this isn’t a few quirky cases or a Silicon Valley headline, it's happening in every field, everywhere. A wrenching shift that's not just about productivity gains. It's about stripping the work—and the people—until there's nothing left.
AI promised freedom. It delivered loneliness.
When generative AI rolled into the workplace, it came cloaked in all the usual Silicon Valley optimism: “We’ll eliminate busywork. Unlock creativity. Give people more time for what matters.”
Now, the reality is setting in. AI might help some people work faster. But it’s also making us lonelier, more disconnected, and less motivated than ever before. A recent article in Inc. cited research showing a disturbing trend: people using AI reported feeling bored, demotivated, and isolated from their coworkers. The more they relied on AI, the worse it got. And when AI was taken away, motivation didn’t bounce back; it dropped even further.
This isn’t a short-term adjustment. It’s a systemwide corrosion.
We’re not collaborating, we’re avoiding each other.
According to Microsoft (cited in the Inc. article), people are turning to AI not just to get work done, but to avoid having to interact with other humans. Fear of judgment. Avoiding friction. Skipping the “handholding.”
Maybe that sounds efficient, but here’s the cost: we’re slowly removing every human moment from work. Every little connection that builds trust. Every hard conversation that leads to growth. Every pause to say, “Hey, you doing okay?”
Strip those out, and yes, you’ll get faster work. But you’ll also get a team full of ghosts. No energy. No creativity. No real culture to speak of. Just tasks, completed in silence.
Sounds spooky.
Work without people is not progress. It’s a collapse.
Here’s the part that really hurts: companies aren’t just using AI to help people work better. They’re using it to replace people, period.
And what gets lost in that equation isn’t just a role or a headcount. It’s a livelihood. A sense of purpose. A voice at the table. A person who was contributing to the team, the economy, their community—and now, they’re gone. Not because they failed. But because a machine was cheaper.
What do they do now?
What do we do now?
Because it’s not just happening in one sector. It’s everywhere—designers, writers, marketers, analysts, support staff, engineers, and the list goes on. Roles are being cut not because the work is gone, but because the tools are “good enough.” And if that doesn’t gut you, it should.
This is not innovation. It’s economic erasure. It’s existential theft.
You can’t automate care.
Some people will say, “But AI helps with the boring stuff. It gives us time for deeper thinking.” Sure, I do not disagree. But what happens when the deeper thinking isn’t valued anymore either?
What happens when the person who once brought heart and nuance and real-world experience to the work is let go, because the algorithm can write a passable email or create a passable strategy or generate a passable insight?
We lose the messy, brilliant, emotional, human parts of work. We lose the friction. The growth. The joy. The trust. The silly jokes in the margins of a doc. The spark of an idea that couldn’t come from a prompt.
And for what? A boost in quarterly earnings? A nicer investor update?
This is a choice. And companies are making the wrong one.
This isn’t a call for “responsible AI.” It’s a call for a human reckoning.
We’ve all heard the phrase: “Use AI responsibly.” It sounds good. It looks great on a slide. But what does it actually mean?
Because if you're a leader, and you’re making decisions right now about AI adoption, the stakes are bigger than just headcount or budgets. You're shaping what your workplace becomes. What your industry becomes. What work itself becomes.
Responsible AI isn’t just about ethics reviews and internal task forces. It’s about choices. Human choices.
Here’s what it might look like in practice:
- Ask what’s gained and what’s lost: Yes, AI might help generate faster output. But does it also erase the opportunity for junior staff to learn? Does it remove the human insight that makes your work unique? Are you creating speed or creating shallowness?
- Audit your culture, not just your code: If your team is using AI to avoid conversations, collaboration, or conflict, that’s not efficiency, it’s emotional offloading. Pay attention to how work feels now compared to six months ago. If connection is down, your risk is up.
- Invest where humans matter most: If AI is freeing up time, great. Reinvest that time in mentorship, feedback, experimentation, and rest. Let the tech do the grunt work, but don’t use it as an excuse to squeeze people even harder.
- Be transparent: Tell your team how you’re using AI. Invite their input. Acknowledge the fear, not just the opportunity. People can adapt, but not if they feel like they’re being slowly replaced in silence.
- Gauge the human cost: Before you “optimize,” pause. What happens to the person whose job gets replaced? What does that ripple do to morale, trust, and belonging? What will your clients lose when they no longer have a real person guiding them? What will your industry lose when mentorship and institutional knowledge disappear?
- Know when you’ve gone too far: If your workplace feels quieter, more transactional, more isolated, or if you’re noticing more burnout, more turnover, fewer ideas, less joy, you’re already there.
So ask yourself: at what point does optimization start to erase what matters?
This isn’t just one tool or one decision; it’s a shift. A pattern. A slow, steady domino effect that starts when one CEO decides that “good enough” from a bot is worth more than real insight from a person.
And then it spreads. Across teams. Across industries. Across the world. Until one day we realize: we didn’t scale progress. We hollowed out the foundation.
The world doesn’t collapse overnight. It erodes—bit by automated bit. So if you’re in charge, be honest: Are you building something better? Or just something easier? Because humankind didn’t get this far by cutting corners. We got here by caring.
If you manage people, you still have power
If you're leading a team right now, you have more influence than you think. You set the tone for how AI is used. You get to decide whether connection still matters. Whether your people still feel seen. Whether they feel safe.
Use that influence well. The future isn’t coming from a boardroom. It’s being built in the choices we make every day with our teams, our tools, and our time.
T L ; D R —AI isn’t killing work, we are. By choosing speed over people, silence over collaboration, and optimization over humanity. If you're leading a team, this is your moment to choose differently. Ask what you’re building and who you’re building it for. Because culture is a human technology, and no bot will save it for us.
