PROFESSIONS
What will our work be like, and which professions will be successful 25 years from now? Everything points to our daily and professional lives unfolding in an environment governed by general artificial intelligence—an advanced stage of AI that will arrive when a machine achieves human-level cognitive abilities. This will provoke changes that will likely surpass any predictions.
“We’ll have to see whether we are capable of developing a new social contract, because when all the operational tasks currently carried out by humans can be performed by machines, what we should really be doing is dedicating ourselves to what each of us is passionate about… What we dreamed of when we were children. Perhaps very few will continue doing so, because they have economic needs and depend on other circumstances… In that future, we should be able to build societies in which working is unnecessary and we can maintain sufficient income to live a dignified life, and that would allow us to dedicate ourselves to what we each feel is our unlimited passion. That would be ideal, but history has taught us that certain social groups tend to control technologies for their own benefit, to the detriment of the rest of the world, and selfishness and psychopathy emerge. We are capable of generating technology that may surpass us in humanism before we are capable of evolving toward a more humane society…”
This is the view of Mario Garcés, founder of The Mindkind, a Spaniard competing with Sam Altman and all the giants of AI in the pursuit of artificial general intelligence. And AGI is not the end of the road; beyond it lies superintelligence (ASI), surpassing the capabilities of any human. But let’s return to AGI and how we will live and work when machines have human-level cognition.
The metamorphosis of work
The era of general artificial intelligence will not bring the end of work, but its metamorphosis. It will transform it profoundly. What remains as valuable human territory will focus on relationships, values, ethics—everything that connects technology with human life and organizational purpose.
Machines can process, generate, and automate many jobs, but giving meaning, ensuring coherence between what we do, why we do it, and how it impacts people will clearly become human and strategic territory.
When a mature AGI can program, design, research, and create art; when it can govern economic and technological systems with minimal oversight; and when it can self-correct and generate new knowledge—humans will redefine their roles, shifting from operators to architects of purpose.
Almost everything we now call “employment” will be automatable or delegable. This does not imply the end of work, but rather its mutation in three directions:
- from technical execution to ethical and strategic direction
- from producing goods to producing meaning, culture, and social value
- from competing against machines to collaborating with them
Operating AI means controlling it; being an architect of purpose means giving it meaning. The shift marks the transition from a technical civilization—focused on efficiency and control—to a reflective civilization—focused on moral coherence and shared purpose.
In a mature AGI era, humans will no longer adjust parameters; they will decide what kind of world we want this intelligence to help build.
Architects of purpose
This distinction between operators and architects of purpose is key to understanding how the relationship between humans and AI will change once it reaches a general, autonomous level.
- An operator uses, supervises, or corrects a machine within the boundaries of a system designed by others. They execute, maintain, and ensure the system works but do not change its goals.
- A doctor using diagnostic AI, for example, interprets results and validates alerts but does not redesign the AI or define its global purpose.
- An architect of purpose, however, determines the goals, values, and limits within which AI systems must operate. They design the system’s direction in alignment with human, ethical, cultural, and ecological values.
Future examples of purpose architects may include:
- designers of universal values: philosophers, legislators, social scientists defining global principles for AGI
- moral coherence councils: international bodies adjusting AI goals to human needs
- curators of future scenarios: teams exploring alternative futures using AI simulations
- human-AI coexistence architects: social designers who define how intelligent systems integrate into communities
The seeds of new roles
Although these examples may sound like science fiction, the foundations for a mature AGI context allow us to identify precursor roles already emerging.
These precursor professions include:
- Chief Ethics Officer (Tech Ethics CEO)
Focused on AI ethics, social impact, bias, and governance.- Microsoft appointed Natasha Crampton as Chief Responsible AI Officer.
- Capgemini appointed Philippe Christelle as Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, illustrating institutionalized corporate ethics.
- Data Governance & Ethics Specialists
Handling data-value-ethics issues—predecessors to future “cognitive integrity guardians.” - AI Governance Professionals / Team Members
Companies like Mastercard have global AI governance teams, led by experts like John Hearty, responsible for frameworks, model-risk management, and interdisciplinary review councils. - Prompt Engineers
Highly sought after. Experts in designing human-AI dialogue and guiding generative models. - Two years ago, salaries ranged from €263,000 to €352,000 at Anthropic.
- AI Explainability Specialists
Translating AI decisions into understandable language—bridging technical systems and human stakeholders. - AI Policy Strategists / Regulators
Designing public policy and regulatory frameworks.
Example: Irene Solaiman, Chief Policy Officer at Hugging Face. - AI Security & Resilience Specialists
Focusing on AI risks, robustness, and reliability—precursors to future protectors of human autonomy and value-aligned systems.
According to IAPP, 23.5% of organizations report that finding AI governance talent is a significant challenge.
These emerging jobs clearly show the seeds of what future AGI-era professions will become.
