Last week, I went to a benefit concert put on by Prince’s former band, The New Power Generation. The benefit was at the club First Avenue, which is an iconic space in Minneapolis, because of the bands that have played there before they broke – U2, Lizzo, Radiohead, Nirvana, Phoebe Bridgers to name just a few – and, most importantly, Prince filmed Purple Rain there, way back in 1984. 

This concert was a tribute to the music of Prince, and it took four different singers to embody Prince’s voice, from his famous falsetto to his suggestive low notes. There was also a moment of magic in the middle of the concert, when the band started to do a dance from Purple Rain (The Bird) right on the stage where Prince and The Time once did it. I got goosebumps thinking about how the energy of 1984 still existed in this club. 

That moment crystallized something for me: the power of shared human experience. While AI continues to advance and threaten to disrupt entire industries, what I witnessed at First Avenue points toward a different kind of future – one where our most human qualities become our greatest assets, economically and otherwise. 

Prince was a genius, not a hot take, but his uniqueness is not unique. We all have that singularity that can’t be replicated or embodied by AI, because it is so human and particular. This is not to say that AI can’t have its own personality – we’ve certainly seen the ways that companies like xAI are experimenting in this area this past week with Grok, and how this can so easily go wrong! 

But here’s what AI cannot replicate: the collective understanding that rippled through the crowd when the band moved in perfect sync with ghosts from 1984. The shared knowledge of Minneapolis music history, the cultural context of Prince’s legacy, the physical sensation of bass lines vibrating through wooden floors and dancing bodies – these layers of meaning emerge only through lived, embodied community experience. 

This points toward a concrete model for the future of work. Instead of viewing AI as a threat to human work, we can recognize it as a catalyst for the parts of work that are most fundamentally human: creating meaning, building community, and facilitating transformative experiences. The New Power Generation didn’t just play music – they created a space where 1,500 people could collectively celebrate artistry and connect across generations. 

In the past few weeks, there have been quite a few articles and interviews siren calling the coming disruption from AI to jobs, industries, and society. These warnings echo like a persistent alarm, growing louder with each technological breakthrough. I am certainly not here to dispel the possible upending of what we know. It may be a time of mass disruption and uncertainty if not managed well. 

But I want to refocus on what that siren call might be drowning out: the power of the arts, community, and collective experiences of pure joy that can become the economic foundation of our future work lives. 

Consider how this might function in practice. As AI handles more routine cognitive tasks, human work could shift toward roles that require cultural fluency, emotional intelligence, and the ability to create meaningful shared experiences. Event curators who understand the dynamics of community building. Facilitators who can guide groups through creative processes that generate both personal fulfillment and economic value. Artists who don’t just create objects, but design experiences that help communities process change and build resilience. 

The magic I felt at First Avenue wasn’t just entertainment – it was a form of collective meaning-making and remembrance that no algorithm could orchestrate. This suggests that our economic future might not be about competing with AI but about doubling down on the human capacity to create connection, meaning, and joy together. 

The question isn’t whether AI will disrupt our work. The question is whether we’ll recognize that our most human qualities – our ability to create transcendent moments together – might be exactly what the future economy needs most.