Looking Back
Not a prediction or a warning, but most certainly an invitation
In 2017, I was asked to join a panel discussion alongside other senior technology executives to share perspectives on the emergence of artificial intelligence . The conversation was hosted by the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. At the time, AI was still mostly discussed as a future capability; something coming, something much more theoretical than it is today.
That panel was the first time I articulated, publicly, the connection between the Industrial Revolution, its lasting impact on work and education, and what artificial intelligence might mean beyond efficiency and automation.
What struck me then and still does now was how deeply the logic of the Industrial Revolution had shaped our thinking. We talked about productivity, scale, and optimization almost instinctively. But very little was said about what had been lost along the way: judgment, craftsmanship, responsibility, and the human presence that gives work meaning.
I remember arguing that AI represented more than a technological shift. It represented an opportunity to reverse part of that legacy. If machines could take on what is mechanical and repeatable, whether physical or cognitive, then humans could move back into roles that are innately human. Roles that require context. Ethics. Empathy. Accountability. Judgment. True human creativity.
That idea was framed as an evolution versus nostalgia or resistance to progress.
The question I posed then is the same one I carry now: What if technology doesn’t dehumanize work further, but instead gives us the chance to re-humanize it? By being intentional about where humans remain essential and why. At the time, such a perspective felt early. Today, it feels unavoidable.
AI has arrived faster and more broadly than many expected. The choices we make now in how we design systems, prepare workers, and talk honestly about work will determine whether this moment deepens the abstractions of the past or helps correct them.
That panel wasn’t a prediction or a waring, per se. But it most certainly was an invitation. We still get to choose what kind of future of work we build.