Are We Safe Enough?
AI is coming for us (unless the far-right gets us first) 🌪️🌪️
Hello, friends.
I’m sorry to be gloomy today. I’ve done my best to finish this article on an optimistic note (you be the judge of my success).
There’s a concept in trauma therapy that I really like: safe enough. None of us is ever 100% safe. The best we can aim for is feeling safe enough. The opposite is not a great place to be in for too long, believe me: defensiveness, anxiety, avoidance and withdrawal.
In order to engage with the world around us (and work) with curiosity and drive, we must be able first to come out of fight-or-flight, recharge, and recalibrate.
My own sense of safety has been tested in recent weeks, for two reasons. One has to do with the impact AI is having on the job market, HR, and employee wellbeing.
Recent research by Indeed (published in this Fortune article) estimates that 61% of the skills listed in HR job adverts have the potential to be at least partially transformed by AI. Based on my own experience in the field, this seems not only realistic, but likely to happen in the not-so-distant future.
AI has already transformed the recruitment practice and the experience of job seekers everywhere. L&D, performance management and reward seem like easy, next targets. Where does that leave the tens of millions of people working in the field? No one knows.
Of course, AI transformation is not just an HR problem. According to the same source, an average of 44% of skills advertised for in the US across the board stand a similar risk.
Is anyone’s job safe enough anymore, and for how long?
As Scott Galloway aptly pointed out on a recent Pivot episode, AI has been used in business primarily to reduce costs, not to generate new value. So far, employees seem to be shouldering most of the fallout from the AI adoption craze.
The state of the job market today sure seems to point to a crisis in motion, and one that AI is partly responsible for. Social media is full of stories of people made redundant, sometimes multiple times in a year. Getting another job is becoming harder and harder - the average American is now spending over 5 months in between jobs (BLS data via Forbes). It feels as if dealing with job loss, extended unemployment, and an AI mediated job search experience are becoming essential survival skills in today’s economy. Do you have them?
While this may be anxiety inducing or even triggering, it feels like a conversation we need to have. Like everything else in our heads, safe enough is a subjective state – the unique outcome of objective individual circumstances, available resources, and personal risk appraisals. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Yet there’s a common thread in there for all of us. It’s an urgent call for us as individuals to do the best we can to prepare for a future that will bring sweeping changes. And it is certainly a pressing matter for businesses, who are already dealing with employee engagement and wellbeing at abysmal levels. According to AXA UK, mental health is already costing UK workplaces £102 billion per year. How long can businesses afford to ignore the root causes, and demand people to walk in everyday as if the world wasn’t on fire?
Discretionary effort – the mother of all productivity – depends on people having first a minimum sense of security and positive outlook. If organisations want more from the people they (still) employ, it’s time to put more in.
And now, for the uplifting finale 🫣.
Humanity has faced existential threats in the past, and found a way forward. Some very clever people are already working on figuring it all out. We have a strong negativity bias – we spend more time thinking about risks than opportunities, but that doesn’t mean the good news are not baked in. And then there are always the Black Swan events - the history-making events just around the corner and we can’t even imagine, which will put an unpredictable spin on everything.
Did that work?
No one knows what’s next - safe enough holds space for that. Change is the only constant, and some of it will be painful. If there’s one thing you take from this, I hope it’s sitting with this question for a few minutes tonight: How is AI transforming your profession, and what are you doing to prepare for it?
On a separate note, I’m opening up 2 coaching seats in October. If you’re working through the intertwine of life and work, have a history of adversity that shows up in your job and you can’t talk to anyone else about it, or want to live a work life that feels less overwhelming and depleting, coaching with me might help. If you’re interested DM me on Substack, or email me at adina@traumaatwork.com.
Thanks for tuning in,
Adina
Hi Adina, I cannot believe the magnitude of changes over the last couple of years. Forget that, the last couple of months!
I no longer recognize the state and country I live in, nor do I recognize the economy from which one of my children was forcibly ejected and the other is looking at with apprehension.
Take care!!
Mike
Dear Adina,
Thank you for bringing up this vital topic. My fear with AI isn't just that it reduces costs- if I'm honest, I have to admit that in most of my day to day tasks it adds more value than me.
I like to pride myself on mastery of maths, semiconductor physics, and electronic design. It has taken me 30 years and a lot of suffering to get here. But for most tasks? ChatGPT 5 on the pro tier does better. So does Claude.
Years ago I had to learn C and, later, Python programming because teams were short handed. Today? Short handed again because the large language models have totally replaced all the entry - to mid-level computer scientists. The remaining ones are the guys and gals able to use these tools to their own ends.
These are all areas we told our kids, "Study these and you will always have a job!" That did not age well.
If/when my company decides it doesn't need me as pointy haired manager or designer of last resort ... I will have ChatGPT write my resume for me.
I sure hope we can find some of "off ramp" for the next generation!