Paradigm Makers Moonlit Minds Journal: Edition 11

Rethinking work in the age of AI

Author

Jess Price
June 09, 2025

Welcome to the 11th edition of Paradigm Makers Moonlit Minds Journal.

Table of Contents

Jess’ Monthly Reflection

AI isn’t stealing our jobs.

I hadn’t planned to write about this, but last week the phrase “AI is stealing our jobs” kept appearing on LinkedIn, the news and even a comedy night. It’s everywhere, but it’s not new. Every major technology has triggered fear. But this time, something feels different.

I love AI. Without it, Paradigm Makers wouldn’t exist. I’ll share that full story one day, but for now, just know AI lets me live 50 years into the future. I can wake up with a question, and by the end of the day, I’ve built a prototype, framework, or concept that shapes what comes next. It’s become a new way of working I’ve spent the last 18 months exploring, and I can’t imagine going back.

So I understand the fear. It’s not irrational, it’s existential. If AI can write, design, code, teach, analyse and coordinate, what’s left for us? What does a first job look like? How do we actually work?

These are the questions I’ve been sitting with, and they’re the types of questions Paradigm Makers was designed to explore.

The fear is loud. But the data is more complex. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 AI and other global shifts are projected to create an additional 78 million jobs globally by 2030. Yet, at the same time, many companies are cutting roles in the name of efficiency. The gap between what’s possible and what’s profitable is rising, and this is the tension we’re living through.

Because what AI is really doing isn’t replacing humans. It’s revealing how much of our work was already performative, extractive, or mechanistic. As Manual Kistner said recently, “AI isn’t stealing your job. It’s exposing which jobs were already meaningless…”

Last year, I shared on LinkedIn a distinction from Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition that’s stuck with me ever since:

  • labour is the constant cyclical effort tied to survival, work that leaves no lasting trace.

  • work is the generative act of shaping the world; it’s creative, deliberate and meant to leave a mark.

Through this lens, what most of us call work is actually labour. And if AI can replicate everything we do, maybe the question isn’t, “What do we do now?” but “What have we been doing all along?”

This issue of Moonlit Minds is a reflection on that question. Not to panic, but to understand. To recognise that the real disruption isn’t that AI can do our job. It’s what it makes possible, if we’re brave enough to rethink the systems we’ve inherited, and what work could be.

As always, we’ll explore this through three lenses: the historical context, opportunities for today and how we can create new paradigms for tomorrow.

Enjoy Wednesday’s Strawberry Moon,

Jess Price

Founder & Chief Vision Officer

EXPLORING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The work we inherited

Throughout history, new technology has always sparked fears of lost industries, jobs, and opportunity. My favourite example comes from the introduction of the first modern camera in 1859. Charles Baudelaire, the father of modern art criticism, declared in a commentary entitled On Photography, “it is nonetheless obvious that this industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art’s most mortal enemy.” If you search for this quote today, you'll notice it’s experiencing a resurgence in the many commentaries on the impact of AI.

The fact that a quote from 1850 has such relevance 175 years later is proof that this fear isn’t new. It’s something humans have experienced since before the first industrial revolution. Work has always consisted of a structure that defined roles, dictated rhythms, and delineated purpose. As technology evolved, so did this narrative, reshaping the very essence of what it means to work.

In this edition, we trace how four industrial revolutions have reshaped work and their ongoing legacy today. Understanding this pattern reveals the deeper forces shaping today’s work and offers an opportunity to rethink what work could be as we move into the Fifth Industrial Revolution.

Pre-Industrial (before 1760)

Before work was measured or managed, it was lived. It followed the pace of nature, anchored in seasons, community, and spiritual obligation. Your work was inherited; you did what your family did and what your role or class allowed. There were no job descriptions, only duties. Tools like ploughs and looms existed to support survival, not scale. While the term innovation existed, it wasn’t something you chased. Hierarchies were so embedded that they felt natural. Landowners held the power, and clergy the authority. Everyone else worked quietly, obediently, without agency or recognition. Work held meaning, but not freedom. It was sacred and exhausting. And while the structures look different today, many beliefs still exist, including that some work is worth more, that some people deserve more and that productivity is tied to identity.

References: Hodson, R., & Sullivan, T. A. (2008). The Organisation of Work in Preindustrial Times. In The Social Organisation of Work (5th ed., pp. 20–37). SAGE Publications; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). History of the Organisation of Work. In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved June 8, 2025, from

First Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)

This is when work changed forever. Not because people did, but because our tools did. Steam engines and factory lines reshaped industry and our identity. Artisans were replaced with operators, time was measured in shifts and skill was replaced by scale. Efficiency was moralised, and to be productive was to be good. Those who resisted were considered inefficient, ungrateful, or replaceable (also known as Luddites). People became extensions of machines, and work became about control of time, output and bodies. Factory owners prospered, children worked, and workers learned to show up, keep pace and stay silent. The social cost was enormous, but often invisible beneath the ‘progress’. Today, our tools might look different, yet we haven’t let go of this logic. We still mirror machine rhythms, rewarding speed over substance and treating productivity as a virtue.

References: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). History of the Organisation of Work. In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved June 8, 2025; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). The Rise of the Machines: Pros and Cons of the Industrial Revolution. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved June 8, 2025.

Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914)

The second revolution industrialised life. Electricity led to mass production, while assembly lines and telegraphs made the world faster, flatter and more extractive. Progress was measured, optimised and moralised. Taylor’s approach to efficiency was everything (see the section on productivity in last month’s edition for more detail). Work became segmented, predictable and controlled. Variation was treated as human error, and humans were considered replaceable parts of larger systems, rewarded for conformity and punished for deviation. While optimism surged, so did alienation. Industrialists amassed wealth, while everyone else adapted, fragmented or disappeared. Entire classes were excluded, especially women, migrants and racialised workers, unless they could conform to the system's definition of value. Today, Taylorism still shows up in job descriptions, fragmented roles still define how we manage performance, and we scaled a mindset that prioritises control over context, process over person and output over outcome.

Third Industrial Revolution (1970-2006) 

As computers, and our generations, entered the workplace, we were told information would set us free. We were promised technology would flatten hierarchies, streamline tasks, and empower everyone. Instead, with the benefit of hindsight, it delivered fragmentation of identity, security and stability. Mainframes, personal computers, and early internet platforms changed how we worked and what work was worth. Knowledge became capital, coders became heroes, and anyone tied to analogue systems (factory workers, clerks, trades) were told to adapt or disappear. Flexibility became the new virtue, but also a threat, as work moved online and then offshore. Roles became leaner, teams smaller, and security weaker. Humans weren't just working with machines, they were competing to keep up with them. Innovation was loud, and while the hype sold freedom, the systems delivered uncertainty. Remote work, gig models, and pressure to constantly reskill started here. It was the time we went from floppy disks and dial-up to USB and Wi-Fi.

References: Frey, C. B., & Rahbari, E. (2016, March 25). Technology at Work: How the Digital Revolution is Reshaping the Global Workforce. VoxEU.org. Retrieved June 8, 2025; International Labour Organisation. (2018). The Future of Work: A Literature Review (Working Paper No. 29). Retrieved June 8, 2025.

Fourth Industrial Revolution (2011-now) 

Smaller devices promised liberation. We could work from anywhere, be our own boss and set our own hours. Yet instead, the systems that came before exacerbated everything we now fear. We rewarded scale, extracted attention and tracked everything. Data became the goal. Cloud platforms, smartphones, AI and surveillance tech reshaped our identities and how we work. Suddenly, our worth could be scored, performance monitored, and we all had a 5-9 after our 9-5's. In the beginning, platforms promised flexibility, but delivered invisibility for workers, contractors and anyone who didn't own the code. Innovation meant platform expansion, not human growth, burnout became expected, and while we thought we had autonomy, in reality, the algorithms deepened their control. Progress meant moving fast and breaking things, but the thing we ended up breaking was people. Today's productivity dashboards, real-time metrics, and constant pressure all started here. Instead of becoming freer, work became frictionless for everyone except the worker.

What this reveals 

Across each of these eras, one pattern repeats. Each technological disruption embeds a set of unwritten rules that linger long after the technologies fade. Time discipline, labour commodification, tech as salvation and speed over safety all still exist in the design of work today. Power imbalances continue to persist, as each revolution allows new winners to rise while everyone else falls. With each new technology, we experienced the same emotional arc, a shift from fear to hope, to awe, to anxiety. The outcome will inevitably be the same until we change the systems we build on.

IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORK TODAY

Is AI really stealing jobs?

Right now, we are living in a hybrid moment. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, marked by AI, automation and platform economies, is still unfolding. Yet at the same time, we are starting to see a Fifth Revolution emerge, one that's human-centric, sustainability-focused and ethically aware. This overlap creates a profound design tension. Do we optimise for AI to take over, with humans acting as inputs? Or do we build something different, systems that recognise complexity, honour creativity and make coherence, trust and agency the measures of success?

Right now, AI feels scary, which is understandable when you remember that knowledge and office workers have known one way of working: we do 'computer things'. This fear has existed throughout history. The difference now is that the cracks in our invisible underlying systems are getting too large to ignore.

We are still working within systems built for a pre-digital global world. The 9-5 workweek, resume, job description and performance reviews are all artefacts of the first, second and third industrial revolutions. They were originally designed for control, scale, and uniformity. Now, we tell people to 'bring their full self to work', or encourage flexible working, but the systems weren't designed for this.

What began as logic has become default, and today's tensions are clues from the past that something needs to change. We still:

  • treat productivity as output, not outcome or value created;

  • value availability over energy or discernment;

  • associate busyness with importance;

  • believe automation means progress, even when it erodes human agency; and

  • design systems that reward conformity, not coherence.

These are inherited design decisions. The consequences are felt everywhere. We:

  • speak about flexibility, but expect 24/7 responsiveness and use legislation as a band-aid;

  • offer wellbeing benefits, but never challenge why everyone is feeling burnout;

  • champion diversity, but assess for culture fit;

  • praise innovation, but rarely define what kind or for whom; and

  • seek impact, but reduce it to metrics.

The systems aren't broken, they're working exactly as they were designed to. But the world has changed, and AI is forcing us to confront this reality.

This tension is also showing up in how companies are responding to AI. While we’re entering a moment of unprecedented potential for reimaging work, many organisations are defaulting to old logics, cutting roles to optimise efficiency, reduce costs, or please shareholders. It’s a reflex rooted in scarcity, not strategy. Instead of using AI to augment human potential, we risk using it to reinforce outdated models of control and compliance.

So what can we do now, as we stand on the edge of the next industrial revolution? Here are three small steps we can all take in our day-to-day work:

  1. In your next meeting, ask: 'What do we mean by [insert term or phrase here]?'

    Hubspot have implemented an "Open & Honest" policy, encouraging employees at all levels to question and discuss company practices and terminologies. You can learn more in their Culture Code.

  2. Replace 'Fit' with 'Add' in your hiring language

    Menlo Innovations has become famous for its interesting approach to hiring. They don't ask for resumes, cover letters or filter candidates based on degree. Instead, they invite all interested candidates to an Extreme Interview designed to reveal the human qualities that truly matter in a collaborative and joyful workplace. You can learn more about their approach on this LinkedIn post.

  3. Conduct a 'default audit' by asking: 'What inherited practices do we follow that no longer serve us?'

    After losing roughly $1 million per day, healthcare company Aetna’s new CEO John Rowe, MD took time to speak with staff to understand how things currently worked. These insights led to a new strategy, which would require a different approach. You can read more in this HBR article.

While each of these examples was led from the top, small changes can start anywhere. These systems were designed by someone, which means we can redesign them. That's where new paradigms come in.

CREATING A NEW WORK PARADIGM FOR TOMORROW

How can humans and AI work side by side?

The Fifth Industrial Revolution will be as much philosophical as it is technological. The question isn’t whether AI will replace humans, but whether we can evolve our systems fast enough to imagine a partnership between humans and machines that’s generative, not extractive.

Right now, we are collectively realising that our belief that humans are only valuable as economic units is outdated. At Paradigm Makers, I want to focus instead on trust, coherence, and agency. Instead of using technology to substitute human capability, I see systems built on the logic that technology is a scaffold for deeper human potential. This new paradigm asks: What kind of system makes sense now?

Here's what I've come up with through Paradigm Makers’ 5 Essential Elements:

People: From roles to relationships 

Old logics assigned people to roles, which were fixed, hierarchical, and performance-based. In this new paradigm, humans are not slots to be filled, but individuals with unique contributions, lived experiences, and capacities for connection, creativity, and care. When AI can do the labour, what remains is distinctly human: creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, & agility, curiosity & lifelong learning, leadership & social influence, analytical thinking and environmental stewardship. The work shifts from directing tasks to cultivating coherence, from command and control to trust and invitation. Teams will be designed less around functions and more around relational dynamics.

Innovation: From disruption to direction 

The old paradigm celebrated disruption by moving fast and breaking things. But what if innovation became directional, not just disruptive? AI enables rapid iteration, but speed without values is dangerous. Directional innovation means choosing coherence over novelty, context over clocks, and stewardship over scale. I've been using this approach to build Paradigm Makers over the last 2 months, and I can't wait to share the results with you soon…

Technology: From tool to teammate 

Technology has long been treated as neutral. But as we are learning, AI is not just a tool. It has the potential to shape what we do, how we think, and who we become. This new paradigm asks us to design technology that is relational, transparent, and accountable through concepts like Value Sensitive Design and Human-Centred AI. AI becomes a collaborator, not a competitor. It augments human insight, not replaces it. We move from using technology for surveillance and extraction to support and extension.

Economics: From productivity to participation 

Traditional success metrics, like Gross Domestic Product, hours worked and output, are insufficient in a world of complex interdependence. What if we measured economic health by access, participation, and meaningful contribution? AI could free us from scarcity logic, enabling new models of value creation like ecosystem partnerships, circular economies, blended value, and inclusive business models.

Norms: From compliance to coherence 

Workplace norms still reward presence and conformity over purpose and creativity. But AI destabilises these patterns, creating space to redefine what's normal. The future of work is principle-aligned, over policy-driven. Cultures that succeed will be rooted in psychological safety, semantic clarity, and shared authorship. Coherence becomes the new compliance.

If this is the world you want to live in, you can start small by asking these questions in your organisation:

  1. What new relationships could emerge if we prioritise trust over job title?

  2. What values shape the innovations we reward?

  3. What are we measuring that no longer matters?

  4. What kind of values are currently invisible in our metrics?

  5. What old norm would we stop following if we trusted our teams?

DESIGN WHAT COMES NEXT

What role will you play in shaping the next industrial revolution?

As leaders, we no longer have the luxury of neutrality. AI is here, and the systems we've inherited are showing their cracks. The most important question isn’t what AI will do to us. It’s what we choose to do with AI.

The opportunity isn’t simply to adopt AI, it’s to redesign the systems surrounding it. That means interrogating how we define work, measure value, and make decisions. These may sound abstract, but they are deeply practical. These are the questions Paradigm Makers asks every day. Because each design choice is a chance to shape the future. And each of us, regardless of role or title, has a part to play.

Are you ready to design something better?

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