AI Threatens Not Just Jobs, But the Sense of Purpose at Work, Says Labor Market Expert

A conversation about artificial intelligence and the labor market usually ends with a number: how many jobs are at risk. Alicja Kotłowska, plenipotentiary to the vice-rector of SWPS University (a private university in Warsaw) and a labor market expert, pushes the topic further in an interview published on August 28, 2026 as part of the Android 2049 series. She asks what happens when AI takes over not just the most routine tasks, but the ones that gave people the greatest professional satisfaction.

More Than Losing a Job

So far, the debate about AI and work has focused mainly on numbers: how many positions will disappear, which industries will be hit hardest, how quickly people need to retrain. Kotłowska proposes a different question. For many people, work is not just a source of income, but also one of the main pillars of a sense of meaning, social status, and identity. If AI takes over the tasks that bring satisfaction, simply keeping a job will not solve the problem.

This distinction matters in practice. Companies and institutions planning AI deployments usually calculate time and cost savings, but rarely ask which tasks in a given profession give employees a sense of agency, and whether automating precisely those tasks might lower motivation and the quality of work in the long run.

An Expiration Date for Skills

The central metaphor of the interview compares professional skills to groceries. Kotłowska says plainly that skills need to be regularly checked for how current they are, because just as nobody buys expired milk, an employer will not hire someone whose skills have lost their market value.

Let's check the expiration date of our skills. Just like when we go to the store and check the expiration date of milk or butter. If it's expired, we won't buy it. And neither will the employer. - Alicja Kotłowska, SWPS University

The expert stresses that skills are no longer something acquired once and for all. In the past, it was enough to earn a degree and a specialization to work in a profession for decades without major adjustments. The pace of change driven by the development of AI tools has shortened that cycle to years, and sometimes months.

Tools for Everyone

The second theme of the conversation concerns the democratization of technology. Kotłowska points out that capabilities that until recently required the budgets of large corporations, such as advanced graphics, video editing, or data analysis, are now accessible to almost everyone thanks to AI tools. On one hand, this opens doors to people without formal education in a given field; on the other, it sharpens competition for contracts and jobs in creative and analytical professions.

This kind of accessibility also changes the definition of what it means to be an expert. Simply knowing a program or a method stops being enough of a professional advantage once everyone interested has access to the same tools, regardless of experience.

The Polish Context

The interview fits into a broader discussion that has been going on for months in Poland about the impact of AI on the labor market, one marked by conflicting voices: some research and reports point to a currently limited impact of automation on employment, while others warn of accelerating pressure to retrain, especially among younger workers just entering the market. Kotłowska's voice adds a psychological and social perspective to this discussion, one less often present in hard economic analyses.

The Android 2049 series, in which the interview appeared, is produced in partnership with Centrum Nauki Kopernik (the Copernicus Science Centre, a science museum in Warsaw) and SWPS University, and aims to bring readers closer to the long-term consequences of technological development, beyond current product launches.

For employees and employers in Poland, this carries a concrete takeaway: AI deployment strategies in companies should account not only for efficiency, but also for which tasks in a given role give people a sense of meaning, and whether automating them might undermine team engagement, even if formally no job is eliminated.