AI adoption creates anxiety not because it takes jobs, but because it reveals most jobs were performance art. The thinking was never the product. The performance was.
We built entire industries around looking smart rather than being useful. Consulting, analysis, middle management—performances of intelligence. AI can't perform. It just produces. Same output. No theater.
The Theater of Work
The consultant who spent weeks on strategy decks. The analyst who crafted beautiful models. The writer who agonized over prose. AI does it all in seconds. The time spent wasn't thinking—it was performing thinking.
Human intelligence was always social performance. What we called "thinking" was mostly status signaling. AI strips the performance away, revealing most knowledge work as elaborate theater.
Watch knowledge workers with AI. They spend more time crafting sophisticated prompts than getting answers. They're performing for the machine now. Old habits.
Knowledge work was theater where everyone agreed on the script. AI gives everyone their own show. No shared stage. No common reality. Just endless performances for audiences of one.