Vanishing Purpose? You Have to Be Kidding.
At Davos, Larry Fink asked Elon Musk a question that landed heavier than anyone expected:
“But how do you then have human purpose in that scenario?”
Musk’s reply was stark and simple:
“Nothing’s perfect.”
He went on to explain that you can’t simultaneously have work that must be done and abundance for all. If billions of humanoid robots can provide every essential service — childcare, elder care, logistics — then work becomes optional.
The room absorbed that as if meaning itself were under threat.
But here’s where I disagree — firmly, respectfully, and wholeheartedly.
Meaning Never Started With Work.
So How Could It Vanish When Work Does?
Let me be clear: I’m not dismissing the deep meaning people find in their careers. I understand it intimately.
There are people who thrive with titles — people who need a domain to master, a field to run toward, a craft to pour themselves into. I’m one of them. Give me a purpose and I will burn for it.
But let’s not confuse meaning with employment.
Work was a container for meaning — not the origin of it.
For most of human history, work wasn’t a self-actualisation project. It was survival. Feeding your family. Building shelter. Carrying on the lineage.
The idea that “your job is your purpose” is a modern script — taught in schools, reinforced by governments, repeated by exhausted parents trying to make sense of an economic machine that needs compliant labour.
Meaning came first. Work borrowed it.
Children Prove It Instantly
Before kids imitate adults, they invent.
My youngest builds worlds that have never existed. And my eldest copies the stressed-out laptop life she sees around her.
Which of those is closer to human purpose?
Children don’t need a paycheck or a productivity app to feel alive. Meaning is their default setting. They explore, create, discover — long before society hands them a timetable and a tax code.
If automation frees adults from the grind, they won’t lose meaning.
They’ll return to the state children occupy naturally: curiosity, invention, contribution, connection.
People Won’t Lose Purpose.
They’ll Rediscover It.
Even today, you can put two experts and a curious listener in a room — all three knowing full well that an AI system holds more information than both experts combined — and yet they’ll still debate, explore, interpret, disagree.
Why?
Because meaning isn’t created by being the smartest in the room.
Meaning is created by participating.
Painters didn’t disappear when cameras arrived. Writers didn’t disappear when typewriters arrived. Creators don’t stop because something else is faster.
Humans stop when they become disconnected from themselves.
AI abundance doesn’t erase meaning.
It removes distractions so meaning can relocate.
Now — Let’s Talk About Longevity
This fear surfaced at Davos too.
“Can you and I reverse aging in this new history — are we going to see it?”
Musk was honest. He said he hadn’t put much time into aging science, but he believes aging is solvable — a synchronised cellular clock waiting to be decoded.
Then he offered his concern:
“There is some benefit to death…
If people live forever, there’s a risk of an ossification of society…
things getting locked in place… a lack of vibrancy.”
I understand the fear. But the logic doesn’t hold.
A 55-year-old with aching joints and shrinking horizons may indeed move through life as if nearing an ending.
But imagine that same person waking up tomorrow with the body of a 25-year-old, the stamina of someone who hasn’t yet burned out, and the wisdom of a lifetime behind them.
Do they become stale? Or do they become dangerous — in the best possible way?
Longevity doesn’t freeze society. Decline freezes society.
Vitality accelerates evolution.
The problem isn’t longer life. The problem is imagining longer life through the mind of someone who feels like they’re running out of time. Reset the body, and you reset the psychology.
The Real Threat Isn’t AI.
It’s Forgetting What We Are Without the Grind.
AI won’t take meaning away. It will take away the illusion that meaning relied on work in the first place.
It will return to us the parts of being human that industrialisation buried:
- creation
- curiosity
- caregiving
- community
- exploration
- growth
- connection
- contribution
- play
- love
- self-expansion
We aren’t facing the disappearance of purpose.
We’re facing the end of a cultural story that told us meaning had to be earned through struggle.
Purpose isn’t vanishing. Purpose is finally being unchained.
And if we build this future with intelligence, compassion, and courage — it won’t break humanity.
It will return us to ourselves.