Does work have an irreplaceable worth that we might unnecessarily give away because of AI alarmism?

“I just lost my job because of AI.”

A devotee from America had sent me this message a couple of weeks ago. As I know him quite well, I called him a few hours later to understand what had happened and to offer some support. It turned out that the reality was much more nuanced, and the prospects were not nearly as bleak as he had initially feared.

Many companies have recognized that the promise of AI has been oversold. Much of the work they had outsourced to AI had ended up costing them more than it would have if they had retained their human employees. He was quite confident that he would find another job soon—and he did, within a week.

A few days later, another devotee called me with a similar concern. But he seemed even more depressed.

“If my skills no longer have value, what value do I have?”

While I encouraged him by sharing what I had learned from the previous discussion, his question touched a nerve within me.

AI Writing—Amazing, Amusing, Alarming

As a writer who spends hours thinking through concepts and crafting words that accurately convey my understanding of those concepts, I have found the capacities of AI amazing, amusing, and alarming.

Amazing because of both speed and scale—the sheer speed with which it can produce short-form writing and the scale of information it can draw from instantly while writing.

Amusing because it tends to hallucinate, leading at times to ridiculous and sometimes hilarious errors in logic and language. AI once confidently provided me quotations from three books—two of which had never been written by an author who had never existed.

And alarming because AI seems to be constantly evolving, and many of its present errors will probably be removed in future iterations. In one WhatsApp exchange with a devotee who reviews my writings, I mentioned, “For an author, AI is like both the best dream and the worst nightmare. It’s like the perfect assistant who may well make their boss perfectly redundant.”

Why exactly should I spend time, thought, and energy to keep writing when AI can write faster than me, and probably better than me, if not at present, then in the future? This has been a question nagging me.

While I already had some answers that had pacified and persuaded me—at least partly—a deeper rationale became clear to me just a few days ago. A devotee assisting in my online outreach had used AI to prepare a course on a rational presentation of the conception of the soul. He had fed AI transcripts of several of my classes on related subjects and wanted to market it as a course prepared by me. Incidentally, I had written on this topic within my book Demystifying Reincarnation. This gave me an opportunity to compare easily and exhaustively what AI had prepared with what I had written.

After I reviewed the course material and found several logical and structural issues with it, I wrote something in conclusion that I found striking. I felt as if it had appeared on the screen, as if from something beyond me.

“Beyond all these specific issues that may be fixed partly as AI evolves, I have a problem in principle with this approach: As a thinker and an author, I want AI to assist me in my thinking and my writing, not do the thinking and the writing for me.”

Whether this statement had arisen from unconscious reflection or divine inspiration was not what really mattered. What mattered most was that while it may have been an illumination from me, it was much more an illumination for me. It illuminated something within me.

As I pondered that sentence, it brought immediate clarity—and immense relief.

Transformation Through Immersion

I had just completed a book on the topic of Bhagavad Gita on Relationships, and the process of spending several hours every day for over three months had brought an immersion in the subject that had been exciting and exasperating, energizing and exhausting, and essentially enriching—through and through enriching. Irreducibly, irreplaceably enriching.

I had felt more deeply connected with Krishna’s words and Krishna’s message during the process of writing this book than I had felt during any other activity, even a directly devotional activity such as praying or mantra chanting. And I would not trade that enrichment coming from absorption in Krishna for anything else, not even for the gratification of having many more books published in my name when most of the book had been written by AI.

Ultimately, what brings meaning and value to my life is not just successfully ticking off the list of to-dos for a day, let alone for a whole lifetime. It is not just the achievements that are credited to my name. It is the fulfillment that comes from having given myself to an effort that is personally meaningful and valuable to me.

It is not even knowing that my effort has brought about some small change in the outer world; it is knowing that my effort has brought a change in my inner world.

The joy of discovery, articulation, and absorption—that is quintessentially human and, ultimately, quintessentially spiritual.

While AI could have written a book on Bhagavad Gita on Relationships, it could not have written my book on that topic. And it could not have undergone the inner journey that writing the book took me through. Certainly, I would not have gone on that inner journey if AI had done the writing for me.

Simply refining an AI-written book and crediting it to myself might have given my ego the titillation of having quickly added one more book to my author’s portfolio. But that would not have given my soul the nourishment that the process of actually laboring to write the book gave me.

That immersion of consciousness is something I choose, cultivate, and cherish.

The Light of the Gita

This reflection helped me appreciate several Bhagavad Gita verses more deeply. The celebrated verse 2.47, which declares that we have a right to our work but not to its results, became so much more personally meaningful for me.

When my attention gets fixated on the results, that is disempowering for many reasons. Philosophically, because I am not the sole doer. Psychologically, because I can never be sure whether the results will come or not. Technologically, because AI may get to those results far faster than I can.

But focusing on the work is empowering because that is how my talents can be utilized and spiritualized. That is how my mind can be stimulated and stabilized.

And that is how my heart can be purified and sanctified—purified by being immersed in the Lord’s purpose, and sanctified by experiencing those precious moments of epiphany that are, to me, glimpses of the Lord’s reciprocal presence.

This understanding also casts fresh light on another scriptural description. There is no dust or dirt in the spiritual world, yet the goddesses of fortune in Vaikuntha engage personally in cleaning the palaces because they want to express their love for the Lord and thereby attract his reciprocal love. Their work is meaningful not because dirt needs to be eliminated. It is meaningful because love needs to be expressed.

The opportunity to engage in meaningful activity has intrinsic value for us as conscious human beings, even if we had no devotional aspirations or inclinations. The Lord has made us in such a way that when we use the gifts we have been given in a spirit of doing justice to those gifts and attempting to make a positive difference in the world, our existence gains value. That individual sense of value remains even if we do not acknowledge that those gifts come from him or are meant for his service. However, both the significance of what we do and the satisfaction we derive from doing it increase manifold when we see our efforts, based on our gifts, as part of a cycle of loving reciprocation with our Lord.

Devotional Reciprocation Beyond AI’s Reach

The Bhagavad Gita’s call for work in 18.46 urges us to make our work a form of worship. I like to phrase the import of this verse this way: “What I have is Krishna’s gift to me. What I do with what I have is my gift to Krishna.”

That same verse begins by declaring Krishna’s omnipresence—he is the One from whom everything has emanated and by whom everything is pervaded. Applied to my own work, it means that he is present both within me, in the talents he has given me, and around me, in the environments where he has placed me. It is through my consciousness that I explore the talents he has given me, and through that same consciousness that I express those talents in the environments where he has placed me.

My service offers me the privilege of engaging in loving reciprocation with him, and of making a devotional contribution to others and to the world while engaging in that loving reciprocation. That is a privilege AI can never take away from me.

AI may one day perform much of the work I presently do. It may even do some of it better than I can. But it can never offer my consciousness to Krishna for me.

That privilege is uniquely mine.

And that is one gift I pray I never voluntarily give away.

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18.46 By worship of the Lord, who is the source of all beings and who is all-pervading, a man can attain perfection through performing his own work.