When Intelligence Is Rented, Every Intellectual Career Is a Lease

The MisconceptionThe popular fear goes like this - a machine arrives, learns your job, and politely shows you the door. Replacement. Obsolescence. A tasteful farewell cake. It is a satisfying story because it has an ending, and people like endings. The actual story is worse because it never ends. Most jobs are not being taken. They are being refinanced. You still show up, you still do the work, you are often faster and better than before. The only thing that changed is that the sharpest part of what you do now arrives through a subscription, and the subscription is not yours. You did not lose the job. You lost the deed. The QuestionIf the most valuable component of your work is delivered by a company that can change the price, the capability, or the terms on a Tuesday, in what sense do you still own your career - and what, if anything, is left that nobody can reprice? The ExplanationFor most of history, professional skill behaved like property. You built it slowly, it depreciated…