Mass existential crisis

What happens when automation accelerates and we are left with nothing to do?

Image by MART PRODUCTION

We are already balls-deep in an existential crisis, whether we admit it or not. Look around: an entire civilization clinging to bullshit jobs, lonely coffee breaks, flavorless office humor, and a daily commute that feels like a funeral procession for the soul. People numb themselves with endless scrolling, TV show marathons, or that watery beer at happy hour—anything to distract from a gnawing emptiness. Because we know, deep down, we’re living in a mass existential meltdown.

Automation

And now, here comes AI, just waltzing in all shiny and capable, telling us it can do our precious tasks better than we ever could. All our tasks. My job: Corporate marketing. Click. Creativity? Click. Whole industries? Click, click, click. The unstoppable march of automation promises to do more, faster, cheaper, all while we stand there slack-jawed, unsure whether to celebrate liberation from these pointless jobs or cry because we won’t even have the meager solace of a co-worker chat or a place to show up and pretend we matter.

Some say, “So what do we do when everything is done by robots? We can finally chase our passions, right?” Possibly, yes. Hobbies. Self-expression. Aim for the stars, settle Mars, find the secrets of the universe. We can see the end of forced labor, maybe, if the suits in charge don’t just hoard every ounce of benefit. But have you looked around at your colleagues who retire and spiral into depression because they’ve got no clue how to exist without a 9-to-5 identity pinned to their chest? Their entire personality withers in the absence of a job title—like they can’t fucking process the concept of “free time.” Many such cases.

Workplace camaraderie

A friend of mine, let’s call him L., openly admits he’s “bored to death” when there’s no work on his plate. This is a guy who complains about the actual tasks at the office, mind you, but if you remove them, he’s lost. “At least with work,” he says, “I have people around—I can shoot the shit with them at break, maybe grab a beer after. Without that, I just… float. I’m bored.” Hell, the workplace, as soul-sucking as it is, still provides some vestige of community. A forced sense of belonging. We humans get pathetic scraps of camaraderie, but at least it’s something.

Personality

As for me, I’m rarely bored (thanks, ADHD!). My head’s brimming with a thousand obsessions, half-baked projects, mental illusions of grandeur. I can’t even keep track of them. So, ironically, I never fear the emptiness—my mania wards it off. But yeah, I would miss the easy friend-making channels that come from working somewhere. How the fuck do you make new friends in your thirties if you don’t have the forced proximity of a shared office? So half of my coworkers are existentially enslaved, and the other half (the ones who stay) do so out of fear of isolation.

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Vacuum

Welcome to the next stage: AI stepping in and rendering most forms of labor moot. People half-celebrate, half-scream inside. Maybe you get your “universal basic income” ticket and you can just… exist. But what does “exist” even look like after a lifetime of performance for the market? So many folks I know define themselves solely by what they produce, or by what the boss thinks of them, or the brand name on their paycheck. That’s the capitalist marinade we’ve all soaked in.

“I can’t wait to do nothing,” some said—until the day arrives, and they realize “doing nothing” is a skill they never learned, a skill capitalism actively discourages. The result: mass despair, more mindless consumption, social media addiction, maybe an uptick in opioids or spiritual cults, searching for something, anything to fill the vacuum.

After automation

Alienation is the pandemic we never named. We’re severed from each other, from meaningful communities, from nature, from any real sense of purpose. We latch onto work because society hammered in the idea that “at least you’re useful.” Then AI goes, Nope, sorry, I got this. So, for many people, that thin veneer of “I matter ‘cause I work” vanishes. Then what? Hobbies? Some of us are bursting with them. Others stand there with empty eyes, never having cultivated a single interest that wasn’t forcibly assigned.

We can talk about building local groups, forging new communities, focusing on genuine relationships, but that demands real vulnerability. Real sweat. We’re out of practice. Our social muscles have atrophied. In the meantime, the half-lucky among us chase dopamine fixes on countless apps, or sink into existential gloom, or drift around the city trying to remember how to meet people in real life.

I keep picturing a future scene: rows of humans, newly “liberated” from meaningless labor, blinking in the sunlight like newborn animals who can’t walk. Some adapt, thrive even, forging maker-spaces, co-ops, creative havens, or stargazing clubs (why not?). But some will just wither—lack of direction can be lethal. If you’ve never found your own anchor in life, that emptiness can swallow you whole.

Liberation?

Mass existential crisis is not some rhetorical flourish. It’s happening right now. We all sense the shift—climate meltdown, political farce, the unstoppable gears of machine-learning. This world is unraveling in slow motion. We’re learning the horrifying truth: so many of the jobs we do don’t need to be done by humans. Hell, half of them never did. Now we have to face ourselves.

And it’s terrifying.

But it might be liberating too, if we dare to let it be. If we decide meaning is found in each other, in creation, in the weird, messy swirl of life that’s not monetized. If we ignore the voices telling us we must labor to be “worthy” or “useful.” If we risk forging genuine communities, that real next-door-human kind of bonding, not just MS Teams channels or cringe office banter. We might find a spark of something authentic.

Who wants freedom?

That’s what this mass existential crisis can offer, ironically: the possibility of collectively stepping into a new world, one defined less by status or utility and more by curiosity, friendship, playful exploration, shared knowledge, real human fuckin’ contact. But it’s a steep hill. Most folks are stuck in an old framework, terrified of freedom (or the illusions of it). They’ll cling to any semblance of “normality,” even if it devours them. The question is whether enough of us can break free from that gravitational pull.

So as AI ramps up and your job melts into the digital ether, remember: you can do something besides freeze in terror. You can create, you can try weird shit, you can form alliances, you can stare at a starry sky with a group of strangers-turned-friends, feeling alive for the first time. Or maybe you’ll hole up in your apartment and waste away. It will be your choice. But the crisis looms, and it’s beyond personal—it’s systemic, global, unstoppable.

We might live to see entire job sectors vanish overnight. Soon, more and more people will wander in that existential no-man’s-land, asking: Now what? Why am I even here?

Purpose

My answer? Lean in, folks. Look at your life. If you feel empty, well, fuck, that’s an honest place to start. Acknowledge it. Then do something, anything, to build or belong, to share or imagine. And yeah, it might fail. We might fail. I might fail, I’m not a people person. But we can’t just slump back into a system that’s tossing us out anyway. Let’s figure out how to be human—not drones, not cogs, not wage slaves, not helpless lumps waiting for the world to fix itself.

Call it a hobby, call it a calling, call it building a small house from scrap wood with your friends, or forming a new subculture dedicated to bizarre music in a basement. Whatever breathes life. That’s the best shield we have against this all-consuming question of why even bother. Because we’re alive, that’s why—and that can be enough, if we let it.

Full of possibility

This existential crisis is here. And ironically, it might be the greatest moment of possibility we’ve faced. Maybe we drop our illusions and create new meaning. Or we slump and let the void have us. That choice is ours. But the old world is done; AI is just the final bullet.

One thing’s certain: the people who designed this system never planned for humanity to have actual free time and actual freedom. They wanted us chained to bullshit. Now that chain is snapping. So if you’re out there, like me, riding the wave of ADHD mania or existential terror or both, maybe you can help shape this next chapter. Start small. Start weird. Start real. Find others.

Because frankly, it’s either that—or letting the emptiness devour us whole. Whatever.

Antonio