“As jobs disappear, so will identity,” says AI futurist Akram Awad, outlining the three types of people that will emerge as AI continues to replace the workforce. He introduces the blueprint for a society built not on wealth and job titles but on purpose and societal contributions, offering a framework to reimagine who you are — and a way for society to avoid a collective identity crisis. (Recorded at TED@BCG on October 23, 2025)
Join us in person at a TED conference:
Become a TED Member to support our mission:
Subscribe to a TED newsletter:
Follow TED!
X:
Instagram:
Facebook:
LinkedIn:
TikTok:
The TED Talks channel features talks, performances and original series from the world’s leading thinkers and doers. Subscribe to our channel for videos on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. Visit to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more.
Watch more:
TED’s videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy: . For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at
#TED #TEDTalks #Technology
@onyekanwokike4589
December 29, 2025 at 3:07 pm
All this AI hype
@graciousfury
December 29, 2025 at 3:31 pm
When AI is long gone, humans will still be here.
@klepacki1492
December 29, 2025 at 4:02 pm
The opposite could also be true
@jackmen4
December 29, 2025 at 3:38 pm
Ai will makes us slaves of it, willingly.
@JB-jm6lo
December 29, 2025 at 3:46 pm
Dumb
@cirquemedia
December 29, 2025 at 3:50 pm
This is all wishful thinking… As a graphic designer with 20+ years of design experience, pivoting to a podcast host does not equate to success in any way… Podcast host doesn’t pay the bills when you don’t have millions of subscribers, teaching art classes to people isn’t what designers do and automating design removes any chance for an actual designer to make things. Your career is limited and you might as well change professions.
@PauseAIAustralia
December 29, 2025 at 3:52 pm
Let’s keep the future human.
@jejejejejesss
December 29, 2025 at 3:54 pm
I think many of the perspectives shared in this video belong in science fiction novels and movies like WALL-E
@IITTIorg
December 29, 2025 at 4:00 pm
There is a group creating a new social measurement called ‘World Civility Index’ to replace GDP. Instead of basing human identity on our jobs, this is a redirection of human purpose and meaning based on a person’s effort in self-cultivation qualities such as social etiquette, empathy, intercultural awareness. The more a person puts effort into refining such qualities, the more recognition the person gets in the form of World Civility Index points. This is somewhat similar to a personal financial credit rating, but instead of measuring the ability to pay bills, the World Civility Index measures one’s soft skills such as manners, empathy and effort in connecting with the community.
The World Civility Index can be used as an incentive, where those showing high efforts are rewarded with bonuses of universal basic income, perks for public transits, discounts at grocery stores.
@fritagonia
December 29, 2025 at 4:24 pm
“Before the industrial revolution our identity came from faith, from family and community”.
I really agree with this.
Nowaday we need to create our own identity/purpose.
@ETfromEuropa
December 29, 2025 at 4:26 pm
I work at Olive Garden. I want universal basic income so I can continue to produce Psytrance.
@doubleuenbeeeh
December 29, 2025 at 4:40 pm
“way much more”
@haku-p2i
December 29, 2025 at 4:45 pm
money is currently the number one source of stress in the world. technologies like ai, robotics, fusion, quantum computing, 3d printing, they have the potential to create economic abundance for all. stop the nonsense about humans losing purpose if they lose their job, and look at the stress most people endure due to economic scarcity.
@dear-future-ai
December 29, 2025 at 5:01 pm
AI can’t even operate a vending machine properly.
@philipmcmanis2135
December 29, 2025 at 5:06 pm
I propose another perspective:
If AI makes humans “useless,” it’s only because we trained ourselves to confuse usefulness with worth.
For the last two centuries, we’ve answered “Who are you?” with “What do you do?”
So when AI starts doing what we do, the mind panics and says, “Then what am I?”
But that question is backwards.
Before any job, before any economy, before any title—there is something more primary: what you love. What you’re drawn toward when no one is watching. What you’d do even if nobody paid you, praised you, or posted it.
Meaning isn’t something we have to manufacture in a post-work world. Meaning is what naturally rises when survival stops consuming all our attention.
And recognition? Recognition is wonderful—but it’s not the source of value. It’s applause. The music existed before the applause.
So no—AI won’t make humans useless.
It will make it harder to hide behind the résumé.
And that’s the gift: it presses us back to what was always true, but postponed by necessity.
We are not what we produce.
We are what we love.
And if we build a world that supports that, we won’t have an unemployment crisis.
We’ll have an awakening of humanity.
@addadaadadad
December 29, 2025 at 5:30 pm
Be happy if work becomes optional and u get a liveable income.
You and your family would never again have to worry about money, only for spoils.
And no you’re not entitled to anything that great men and women achieve just because they’re going to be extremely successful.
Idk about you but idc if Elon musk or Jeff Bezos became a quadrillionaire, it does not affect me at all, and shouldnt affect you either.
@zettaiengineer4202
December 29, 2025 at 5:31 pm
Education will become unnecessary and knowledge devalued implying fewer human led advances leading to stagnant AI models and progressive decline. Is that evolution in reverse? Could anyone in the future get across town if GPS/navigation stops working?
@agahnim0196
December 29, 2025 at 5:38 pm
“Will AI Make Humans Useless?”
Well, that’s assuming they were ever “useful”….
@Mistermagicgaming
December 29, 2025 at 5:41 pm
If anything, the amount of AI slop and AI making electronics expensive makes me appreciate humans a lot more than fucking AI
@IndependentPersonality
December 29, 2025 at 6:17 pm
What is going to happen to people like me? I am a systems thinker and an individual who relates to patterns. I cannot get my high school equivalency because I have dyscalculia. I have a master’s degree level of proficiency in English, yet society has thrown me into the garbage. I am seen as having no value because I do not have that magic toilet paper they call a high school diploma or equivalency. I have yet to find a college that will allow me to attend. Really? Does one need math to be a philosopher? The question I propose is this, if society cast me aside before artificial intelligence, what use would I be in a world filled with unemployed, college-educated individuals?
To my dismay I must assume I would have no place in society and others in my position would also fill that pressure.
You stated that contributions would be the measure of a human worth in a society of artificial intelligence.
You see there? That is the trap of self.
In a future society, we must remove the gates and the walls that forbid individuals such as myself from participating productively in society. We must not judge an individual on the basis of their curriculum.
@Other-AllOfTheAbove
December 29, 2025 at 6:28 pm
Questions about purpose and life are secondary with survival in mind.
Why ask about purpose when you can’t even put food on the table? I will not discard your questions as useless. But their are misplaced, for the moment.
@aibel99
December 29, 2025 at 6:38 pm
Lol, if you ever wanted to know what if without working looks like, as one from the arab gulf nations. They do didly squat and get paid for it. Theyre living that life already.
@saranbhatia8809
December 29, 2025 at 6:45 pm
Great talk! Let’s make this world a better place!!
@sahildahiya3979
December 29, 2025 at 7:34 pm
Wrong guy to do a ted talk on AI “boom”
@sahildahiya3979
December 29, 2025 at 7:35 pm
I mean, I don’t find him qualified enough to do such commentary
@ToneyCrimson
December 29, 2025 at 7:37 pm
If i get payed and can live comfortably i dont care. I will make a cottage in the woods and live my life doing my hobbies.
@RussellMartin-t1l
December 29, 2025 at 8:14 pm
What will AI’s purpose be without humans?
@陶君-x4l
December 30, 2025 at 2:19 am
I cannot trust someone who makes money from AI and tell me how AI gives new purpose to me, I just simply cannot.
@supernetsi1
December 30, 2025 at 3:01 pm
It will not give you a new purpose, it will enable your original human purpose one that would naturally emerge if you didn’t have to become a capitalistic human machine.with artifitial purpose.
@socialsyncc
December 30, 2025 at 2:25 am
I watched this video 10 times to understand is it normal?
@陶君-x4l
December 30, 2025 at 2:28 am
Bro plans for a social revolution, AI is just his excuse. 😅
@melmaximus6221
December 30, 2025 at 2:55 am
The reality is that only the intellectual ‘elite’ debate this, is there shelter protected world’s. Where is your AI when the sewerage pipe block or a water pipe breaks or you need something as meaning less as food? The low level of thinking on this reminds me of a racist anti immigration protest by smallbminded uneducated rabble. The modern world has really narrowed our view of the larger natural world thet is taken for granted and this is the true risk of not AI but the tech addiction. Good luck
@thisprojecthasbeenabandone375
December 30, 2025 at 3:28 am
Oh, boohoo; you humans are gonna have to concern yourselves with something other than your made-up “job title,” artificially imposed scarcity, and status games…
That is, if AI decides to let you cruel, mortal, greedy pig-apes coexist with it in the first place…Terminator, anyone?
@HopelessRomantic1968
December 30, 2025 at 3:32 am
AI will make us all dumber. Why bother thinking or being creative?
@stevekaufmann8109
December 30, 2025 at 6:01 am
Shouldn’t we be having a revolution against this right now?
@engmsaif1
December 30, 2025 at 6:17 am
Great talk but utopian view! adaptors, who shall entertain the rest of humanity while guardian and pioneers work, will be the crushed.
@AyushYadav-st4kr
December 30, 2025 at 8:14 am
I think we were on right path after internet development then we had two paths ==> AI and Quantum Computers , probably we took wrong step
@LilyEvans1996
December 30, 2025 at 9:08 am
ok but before we think about cutting doctors can we just increase the accessibility of medicine to people lol We dont have enough doctors as it is. I am in the beginning still and already triggered
@humanemaths
December 30, 2025 at 10:21 am
I didn’t understand anything 😢
@AbadAbadAbadA
December 30, 2025 at 11:10 am
미국인한테는 보편소득이 돌아갈 수도 있겠지만 그 외 국가들은 글쎄
@AkramAwad
December 30, 2025 at 11:21 am
Hi everyone, Akram here (the speaker 😊).
I have been reading through the comments: the supporting ones, the doubting ones, and the critical ones. To me, this is all positive. The goal of this talk was never to offer a “silver bullet” solution, but to start this exact conversation.
I see the deep divide in this thread between the hope for a new purpose and the fear of economic survival. Regarding the “elephant in the room” (how do we pay our bills?): I acknowledge this fear early in the talk because it is real. However, I truly believe we cannot solve the future using today’s norms and systems. AI is too disruptive for us to rely on old economic and societal models.
Is this vision utopian? That is up to us. It requires collective thinking and debate to decide if we want to build a future defined by our output, or by our humanity.
Thank you for watching and for challenging these ideas. Please keep the debate coming.
@josefapizarro3047
December 30, 2025 at 7:38 pm
Im angry because they are shoving us their AI, none ask for it and now we are in trouble, and we have to learn to live with it when is provoking an existencial crisis. Is such an injustice, and what can I do for it? Just show my anger and not using the damn thing . Is disruptive, yes but why I must accept disruption of a few, I don’t care about their ideas or what they want for the future we are against it and we are society, not them.
@ManishaSharma-e6l
December 30, 2025 at 11:43 am
I am sorry, but I don’t want to agree with your analysis. While internet and Computer brought the world closer, AI is actually going to make things deeper better and more precise and accurate and more mechanically, accurate such as reading of x-rays ,scans , robotic surgeries, et cetera, and also the examples you gave about space. Now here the main differences, computer and internet brought the world together and created many more jobs. IThat was an era because of computers, the economy boomed because of increase in productivity. Your analysis of generators and pioneers doing better in the job is correct but analysis of adapter which is a larger segment contributing to society is not correct. We have seen lot of unrest in generation Z. large section of adapters left without work will only increase directionlessness and anarchy in society. There will be more entertaining activities than productive ones. If you ask me it is leading to the model of beautiful people in Psychology, where when rats given more food and less struggle for it led to anarchy and might is right the of society. My theory is if scientists and politicians are smart then they should restrict the fields in which AI can be used and leave some where it should not be used.
@SarahCSE
December 30, 2025 at 12:08 pm
I’m not worried about the second question at all.
@alex-boke
December 30, 2025 at 12:13 pm
But how do I make my mortgage payments if I don’t work?
@sandeepkn863
December 31, 2025 at 8:49 am
Those companies who are at forefront in adapting AI & reducing human work force..shall not be taxed..instead the relevant profits shall be used for mortgage payments of people…
@TheMSarabi
December 30, 2025 at 1:18 pm
These won’t apply at all if there is no minimum guarantee for minimum level of resources. In that case the society will be divided into two groups, those who accumulate wealth and those who struggle to survive. And in most places in the world, this is a lot more likely in my opinion.
@JaBoss397
December 30, 2025 at 2:29 pm
How do i eat ? 🤔 if AI take all the jobs
@sommmeguy
December 30, 2025 at 2:34 pm
The philosphy if the luddites has been maligned and underrated. I think we need to take another look at that alternative lifestyle.
I have never measured my worth by my occupation or income. However, others do and that’s how I earn my keep. Nodody os going to pay you to do nothing. Do not accept living on the charity of the tech billionaires.
@Ian_Walsh
December 30, 2025 at 3:18 pm
At the bottom of my chatgpt web page it states `ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info`. So that rules it out of most professional jobs. It cant do plumbing so it can`t fix or Install my heating. It can`t sort my house electrics out. It can`t teach my grandkids dance or gymnastics. The list of things it can`t do is far longer than the list it can do.
@fireflymary9269
December 30, 2025 at 3:41 pm
Booooooooooooo AI. Marion all tech people on an island that has nothing on it.
@fireflymary9269
December 30, 2025 at 3:42 pm
TED is a propaganda channel for tech and billionaires
@MikeZeroX
December 30, 2025 at 3:59 pm
*Social scores and re-education, what could go wrong with such a system.*
@rw6836
December 30, 2025 at 6:17 pm
The free market will naturally guide people into jobs that still need humans to do them. If there comes a time when AI could do everything, people’s salary would for sure need to be re-imagined. But if people don’t have to work for a living, many people might choose to not work at all and just enjoy a life of leisure. Just look at what retired people like to do.
@martinparmer
December 30, 2025 at 7:01 pm
Sorry but this is pure BS. There will be no re-wiring of the human requirement of economic gain and incentive. It may look different but anything that actually works will adhere to this fundamental fact.
@carlosrayortiz
December 30, 2025 at 8:43 pm
Fake news
@austinsbostons7040
December 30, 2025 at 8:55 pm
This is going to go bad
@UncleChisel
December 30, 2025 at 9:44 pm
So host a podcast and hope you can pay your mortgage
@Raazmax777
December 30, 2025 at 10:33 pm
In the AI era, I don’t think real adaptation exists. Human minds and bodies have been pushed to their limits for 20 years just to keep up with technology. What’s coming next is chaos or revolution
@DerhanaSitymunawaroah
December 30, 2025 at 11:26 pm
Maybe nobody paid it.
@justsomeone64
December 30, 2025 at 11:28 pm
Robots can be hacked.
@AnAngelineer
December 31, 2025 at 2:47 am
It won’t. Even if A.I. ever reaches that point where it can “replace everything” (an idea that kind of starts hitting the wall of reality recently, as people increasingly realize A.I. is unreliable and can’t do much without human supervision). A.I. will be destroyed by the very collapse of the economy that it helps accelerating right now.
Computer chips, datacenters, the material infrastructure of A.I., those things don’t grow on trees. Right now American tech companies can pay the staggering prices for those because they are spending the hoard they accumulated for decades. They are losing BILLIONS each trimester in the pursuit of this A.I. dream. But it’s not sustainable.
Once the wells of venture capital and big tech hoarded money dry up, A.I. dies. Computer guys tend to see technology in a vacuum, and forget that without a viable economy around it, nothing ever really works for long.
@andersfant4997
December 31, 2025 at 7:23 am
Why do you think humans will be in control?
@logan-venderlic
December 31, 2025 at 8:03 am
I’m 100% down for a shift to just doing what feels meaningful in life instead of being a drone for capitalism BUT where is my income coming from?
UBI seems interesting but how is that funded and will the rich actually care enough to fund it to a point where people can live comfortably? In the US, the rich often treat the poor as if they just need to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” and often cut public and social funding for just about everything. I don’t currently see the empathy needed to make this system work. There’s so much greed.
@sanjaisai8418
December 31, 2025 at 9:19 am
Human is teaching AI everyday to take their own JOB… AI is not responsible…. we are responsible…
@APL1955
December 31, 2025 at 3:38 pm
so if AI takes over the jobs, there won’t be any customers left so there won’t be any business left so they won’t need AI so what’s the point
@redwoodrando
December 31, 2025 at 5:11 pm
Let’s get past providing basic needs before we worry about purpose.
@BartoszR-e3w
December 31, 2025 at 5:14 pm
LLM IS NOT AI NOR MACHINE LEARNING. IS IT PATTERN RECOGNITION
@tommags2449
December 31, 2025 at 8:23 pm
Its all income. When you are starving meaning means nothing.
No jobs – Economic collapse.
Useless video
@ahmadhaidirmusana
December 31, 2025 at 10:49 pm
Ahmad Haidir Musana 01 Januari 2026❤🎉
@alainenkiri
January 1, 2026 at 1:51 am
A very optimistic, Human Approach for AI development , which might not be obvious but worth aiming for .
@derrickscott9469
January 1, 2026 at 3:39 am
I work for a paycheck, not a purpose. Other things in my life are what provide purpose, meaning, fulfillment, enjoyment etc. But I can’t pursue those other things if my basic needs aren’t met. We don’t even have universal healthcare in the USA, so UBI seems like a pipe dream. If AI makes evermore human labor obsolete, they won’t be made useless as much as repurposed in a worse way. The homeless population and related street/domestic crime will explode, resulting in greater mass incarceration and forced labor, as our constitution explicitly allows prisoners to be used as slaves. Climate change will make vast swaths of land unlivable/inarable, which will drive much more people to migrate and work in ICE or similar organizations to block migration or enslave migrants. Moreover, AI replacing humans in military contexts means autonomous weapons operating with no conscience or accountability to anyone. And if those who control the machines decide that there are simply too many people, there are no safeguards in place to prevent a genocide of the “useless”.
@QuickCruiseTips8
January 1, 2026 at 8:15 am
The ‘purpose crisis’ line hit hard
@niteeshgajane404
January 1, 2026 at 8:32 am
This is the most useless TED talk I have heard. There is no way that corporation that spend billions to keep the masses in survival mode will suddenly try to induce purpose driven mechanism. It is absolute bull**. My guess about future with AI is people will not breed as they won’t have the resources needed and only the Ultra rich can have families and legacies and their goal will be to go beyond galaxies to search for habitable planets and exploit its resources
@Nikocaribe012
January 1, 2026 at 1:42 pm
And who is paying for this future? Elon? Jeff? I don’t think so
@ultrasaiyan4283
January 1, 2026 at 5:38 pm
Nobody cares what it will be in end results as it’s seems like fairy tale, but what to do in transition period.
@ParagPandit
January 1, 2026 at 8:13 pm
That’s enough bull 💩💩💩💩💩 for today 😅 If this is the future, we would have started seeing a glimpse of it already. What are we seeing?