Machines might not take your job. But they could make it worse

July 19th was a day for help-desk heroes and support superstars. A routine software update by CrowdStrike, a cyber-security company, caused computer outages in offices, hospitals and airports worldwide. Most white-collar workers looked disconsolately at their screens and realised just how useless they are if they cannot log in. People in IT came to the rescue of helpless colleagues and stranded passengers. Their work that day was full of stress—but also full of meaning.

If machines can add purpose to some jobs when they fail, what about when they work properly? This is not an idle question. Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) in particular easily get lost in hypothetical debates about wholesale job losses or, worse, the nature of consciousness. But technologies tend to spread in less dramatic ways, task by task rather than role by role. Before machines replace individuals, they change the nature of the work they do.