AI Could Deliver a Post-Work Future, but What Would We Do With Our Time?
For centuries, humanity has dreamed of a life free from toil, filled with leisure, learning, and pleasure. With the arrival of artificial intelligence, that dream may finally be within reach. Yet amid the pressing concerns about AI's disruptions, few are asking a fundamental question: if we no longer had to work, or needed to work as much, what would we do with all that free time?
Brigid Delaney, author of two books on Stoic philosophy, imagines a thought experiment: suppose universal basic income becomes a reality to address mass joblessness—a policy that has gained traction in the UK over the past year. Suppose AI operates as a not-for-profit enterprise, as OpenAI was originally intended. If subsistence is secured, the big questions become philosophical rather than economic.
Ancient Thinkers Envisioned Abundance
Philosophers throughout history have grappled with time abundance. In ancient Greece, Epicurus and his circle spent their days debating philosophy, striving for contentment with basics—though their idyll relied on labour from slaves like Mys. Thomas More's 1516 Utopia imagined a society governed by reason, communal property, and no money. Karl Marx, in his early notebooks Grundrisse, argued that automation would reduce necessary labour, freeing people for science, arts, and creativity. (He later abandoned this view in Capital, believing capitalism could continually renew itself.)
In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that within 100 years, technological advances would meet basic needs, reducing work to a minimum. Only four years remain until that deadline. The 1960s hippies tuned in and dropped out, experimenting with psychedelics, communes, and Eastern religions, aiming for flourishing outside work and family.
Why We Work More Despite Technology
Yet humanity works more than ever, thanks to smartphones keeping us always on. The ancient goals of flourishing slip further out of reach. Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel prize-winning physicist and godfather of AI, predicted in 2025 that AI would replace everyone doing mundane intellectual labour. In a recent interview, he warned: 'If you make lots and lots of people unemployed, even if they get universal basic income, they're not going to be happy. Because they need purpose… they need to feel they're contributing something.'
Steve Bartlett, host of Diary of a CEO, envisioned a post-scarcity society focused on entertainment, noting tech entrepreneurs buying sports teams. But cultural theorist Mark Fisher, in his 2009 book Capitalist Realism, popularised the phrase: 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.' He argued that capitalism has colonised our worldviews, making it impossible to conceive of a world without economic value.
Building Consciousness for Abundance
Fisher, who died by suicide in 2017, believed that capitalism is like water to fish—we cannot see beyond it. In his uncompleted work Acid Communism, he began to articulate how to conceive of life beyond work. His answer: the consciousness required to enjoy abundance must be built, and capitalism actively prevents that formation because it is not in its interests.
If we no longer needed to work, the shift would be profound and spiritual, requiring a complete reorganisation of our conception of nature, money, time, family, community, and self. Dignity would be found not in work but in our actual personhood, in our existence and place in the cosmos. We would exist without economic value, no longer required to provide it.
Instead, we could regain our place in the natural order, rather than exploiting it. This vision aligns with ancient philosophers who saw humans flourishing through friendship, intimacy, harmony with nature, food, wine, ritual, good talk, and company.
Under the right conditions, the abundance AI promises represents an enormous opportunity—a chance to reconnect with the ancient project of how to live. It promises nothing less than a shift from a human doing to a human being.
