# From the mechanization of work to the mechanization of thought

This essay is an exercise in self-reflection, triggered by my innate discomfort with the rise of AI. My concerns are not apocalyptic; those would have been easier to comprehend. Existential fears tend to be simple and more pronounced.

Since there was something simmering under the surface, I found it worthwhile to dig more deeply into why I feel the way I do. Reflecting and writing has helped me grapple with my thoughts, though in a somewhat haphazard manner. It is difficult to produce ordered thinking from an unordered mass (or mess).

Therefore, this essay may be entirely useless to you, dear reader. (I like opening with such a disclaimer. It is a cheap escape clause. I plan to use it more often.)

### Handmade or machine-made

As the title suggests, I started with a common framing of AI—as a means to mechanize thought, much like the Industrial Revolution is tied to the mechanization of work.

Physical effort has never had an impact on my livelihood. So, mechanization that reduces blue collar jobs has been a matter of political and academic interest for me, rather than a living reality. Rather, given my comfortable life, I have the luxury to celebrate physical effort—something that was brought to sharp relief by the recently concluded 2026 Winter Olympics.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot. Has job loss become a living reality rather than an academic matter?

Certain types of thinking tasks have been besieged for a long time, such as playing chess. Since I am a mediocre chess player with no ambitions to get better, that has never worried me. But machines can now do what I care about, want to improve, and find essential in my profession—writing[^1].

My discomfort with the mechanization of writing is no different that that of a Luddite—textile workers in the early 19th century who protested, often violently, the use of certain types of machinery, and lent their name to denote anyone who is "anti-technology"—though I have a markedly lower propensity for breaking things with a hammer. By the way, the Luddites' fears did come to pass, in an era marked by economic strife and war-related depravation.

I still have reverence for handmade items. But textile mechanization has made a variety of inexpensive garments widely available. (Though one may argue that inexpensive garments are, in fact, quite expensive when their total social and economic costs are considered.)

Much in the same way, it is likely that a lot of my writing may get stripped away from my role. Machines already assist me in uncovering new ideas (new for me), and in integrating them into a concept note. For them to be able to do more of what I do is an obvious next step.

### Two detours

At this point, I took detours to assuage my worries about the future of writing. I turned to two people whose thinking I admire and avidly consume.

The first is Paul Graham, many of whose essays are worth reading attentively. In May 2025, he wrote ["Good writing"](https://paulgraham.com/goodwriting.html). Graham argues that writing is the means to develop an idea. He posits that good writing is inextricably tied to good thinking; that a *specific* kind of writing that is beautiful is more likely to be truthful. I recommend that you read the original in full.

At first pass, this essay was quite reassuring, until I reflected on how much of what I think is automatic, not deliberate[^2]. Most of my thinking is reflexive; the result of many years' of conditioning. And possibly, many lifetimes, too.

Reflexive thinking does not lead to good ideas. Now that is a useful takeaway.

The second person is Brandon Sanderson, one of the most skillful fiction writers alive. If you have not read his work, I recommend "The Emperor's Soul" as a teaser, and The Mistborn Trilogy (which has since expanded to two trilogies) as a follow-on.

His talk, titled "We Are the Art", is on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb3uK-_QkOo). A full-length transcript is available on [Sanderson's blog](https://www.brandonsanderson.com/blogs/blog/ai-art-brandon-sanderson-keynote). I highly recommend listening to his talk. It is clear and thought-provoking, presented with Sanderson's characteristic humor and verve.

The essence of Sanderson's message is in the title—that the artist is the art. That the very act of making something shapes the artist. That it is a matter of process and first-person experience, not outcome alone.

This message resonated with me. Create something and enjoy the process—that was my takeaway.

That said, if society pays for output, creative professions will increasingly be at risk.

### Creativity and machines

The challenge increases when we move outside the realm of creative professions. While all professions hold a measure of creativity, there is no real contest between equipment maintenance and writing essays. I have done both; writing is not just laborious, it is complex. Laborious is pushing a boulder up a hill. Complex is having to look at a mountain range and find the right path to roll a boulder across it. Some paths are clear, while others reveal themselves only after I start the journey. Still others some show promise early on, only to lead to a dead end and the drudgery of walking back.

Machines have tackled many aspects of laborious thinking well before large language models were developed; now they are performing increasingly complex thinking.

As machines becomes more capable, it is also helpful if I assess my capability against the spectrum of human ability.

There have always been many people who are far better than me in my domain, whatever I consider it to be—healthcare, process improvement, leading teams, or technology. Equally, many more have had far greater impact on the world. So if machines generally raise the floor , I am not discomfited \[^5]. Being made irrelevant by other humans was always a real risk. Adding machines to the competition does not explain my discomfort. I have way too much self-confidence for that.

Just as more sophisticated work-machines have not limited our ability to find even more ways to mechanize work, thought-machines will not limit our ability to think more deeply *as a species*. Rather, the process of thinking is likely to accelerate.

Wildly divergent thinking, of the nature of an Einstein, who made nigh-unbelievable intuitive leaps, will still remain as rare as before. But validating the concepts posited by an Einstein, such as the nature of gravity and its effects on the movement of light based on the observation of distant planets, is likely to accelerate. I believe this is an important qualitative distinction that will remain for some time.

My work does not lie at the frontiers of science or philosophy. This is a nice way of stating the obvious—that I am no Einstein. I have worked on translating what is known and understood into what is useful, and it is this translation that will be accelerated by thinking machines. If more thinking machines mean more useful things for more people, then there is no basis for discomfort here.

### Doing, thinking and being

I believe that the ability to do things—knit a sweater, sketch an image, walk up a hill—has intrinsic value. Even when sweaters can be easily purchased, image generators can create images, and buses and cars replace the function of our legs.

This belief implies that, like Sanderson, I do not consider output as the benchmark. What I value is effort.

Maybe that explains how my own use of AI differs based on the context. When I write a piece like this, I want to struggle with forming sentences, expressing ideas, arguing my position, and playing with structure. When I write for work, I am much quicker to use AI to convert an outline into a long-form document that I can review and send to a client.

In the first instance, the point of the essay is the writing of it; the process matters more than the output . In the latter instance, the point of the document is to convey something clearly to a client. The outcome matters far more than the process.

Suppose I train a thinking machine to models some of its thought-patterns on mine, improve on other thought-patterns, and also access a greater pool of knowledge. Arguably, I could create a better, cheaper and more accessible replacement for the thinking functions performed by my mind, especially when for a particular role (that of running Lattice Innovations).

But then, am I my mind? That is where Descartes stopped, with his declaration that "I think, therefore I am". Subjective idealism also stops there—this branch of philosophy declares that there is no way to prove the existence of anything but our own subjective experience of world. It is a lonely philosophy.

In matters of philosophy, I am deeply influenced by *Advaita Vedanta*,. Let me use one of its frameworks that is well suited to "delaminating" the mind-body system: the *pancha kosha viveka*.

*Pancha* is "five", *kosha* is "sheath", and *viveka* is "discernment". This approach breaks down the self into five sheaths:

1. *Annamaya kosha* - the food sheath. The most observable outer layer, which is literally constituted of the food we consume: *anna* is food or foodgrain.
2. *Pranamaya kosha* - the sheath of vital forces (like breathing)
3. *Manomaya kosha* - the mind sheath. *Mana* is mind.
4. Vijyanamaya kosha - the intellect sheath.
5. *Anandamaya kosha* - the bliss sheath, which is the innermost layer that reveals itself once thought and activity are paused.

There are other ways in which the body-mind system has been divided, with some classifications splitting it into seventeen parts. However, the key thing is *Advaita Vedanta*'s assertion is that **I am none of these sheaths**.

When I leave behind the body (a relatively doable task), and then the mind (much, much harder)—with all of its thoughts, feelings, ideas, ego—then everything objective has been discarded. "Objective" as in what can be reduced to objects.

What is left, then? The subject alone. The subject that is the basis for all reasoning to happen, for all feeling to be felt, for all action to take place, for all of existence to manifest.

This gives me confidence—not of a transitive, "job security" nature, but confidence in something immutable. That if I discard these sheaths, then there is something true and and eternal to be understood and realized. And this truth is beyond the reach of machines, because it is beyond the reach of words, and even thoughts.

Then the goal is not another original or useful thought or action. Rather, the goal is self-realization that harnesses all thought and action as the means to seek our what I truly am. The value of what I do is in how I use it to shape myself.

[^1]: In an earlier [post](https://www.soura.org/essays/writingforaliving), I described how I consider writing THE essential task that I do at work.

[^2]: Or system 2 (deliberate) versus system 1 (automatic), as described by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman in his 2011 bestseller, "Thinking, Fast and Slow".
