Name: Will AI Cause Humans to Lose Their Sense of Purpose?
Uploaded: 2025-08-23T15:45:08.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Will AI Cause Humans to Lose Their Sense of Purpose?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-23. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Will AI Cause Humans to Lose Their Sense of Purpose?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-23. Transcript available.

one of the big fears is like purpose right like human purpose like work gives
us purpose
and also i think the idea that we are the ones advancing humanity gives us
purpose like we are
the like yeah like we have some control over our own destiny maybe gives us
this sense of purpose
and it feels like that we would lose a sense of purpose or that purpose would
be adjusted
like if ai is to really you know continue to advance so quickly it feels like
our sense of
purpose would start to really disappear do you have you had thoughts about that
i worry about
this a lot it's so i think people have worried about this with every big
technological revolution
but i agree that this time it feels different like okay yeah because if say you
had an axe and
somebody i came out with a saw you're like fine you're like yeah that's or even
if they come out
with like a robot that cuts the tree down it still feels fine but like
creativity intelligence i
think cuts so deeply at the core of whatever we are and right we how we value
ourselves um
one example we can look at this right now i think one area where ai is having a
big impact is on how
people write software for a living and ai is really good at that it's really
changed what it means to be
a software developer i haven't heard any of those software developers say that
they even though their
job is different that they don't have meaning they still enjoy it they're
operating at a higher level
um and i'm hopeful at least for a long time you know 100 years from now who
knows but i'm hopeful
that that's what it'll feel like with ai is even if we're asking it to solve
huge problems for us
even if we ask it to say like you know go discover a cure for cancer
there will still be a lot of things to do in that process that feel valuable to
a person
you're still asking it the questions you're still like helping guide it you're
still framing it or
whatever it is you're still like talking to the world about it and
and i think all of human history suggests that we
find a way to put ourselves at the center of the story and feel really good
about it like you
know if you kind of think like
we used to think that the earth was the center of the solar system and then we're
like very human
centric view and then we're like okay fine the sun is the center of the solar
system
but the solar system is at least the center of the galaxy and now oh man there's
a lot of
galaxies and oh man now we're this like tiny speck in this like very huge
universe
and and yet we still manage to feel all like a lot of main character energy
and so i somehow think even in a world where ai is doing all of this stuff that
humans used to do
we are going to find a way in our own telling of the story to feel like the
main characters
and i think in an important sense we will be and that's really good i also like
you know probably
already today there could be a very compelling version of two ais talking like
this
and i don't think i don't want to watch that like i think i i really do feel
deeply wired to like care
about the real person behind it i think that's like deep in the biology right
do you think right
now if humans regular average humans most humans could vote to keep ai going or
to stop ai what do you
think that's a great question would you think that they would vote this is like
totally kind of i
don't have any data for this i would bet most people who use chat gpt which is
a lot of people
know they would say like keep it going and most people who don't would say it's
scary stop it what
do you think yeah i feel like most people would say stop it i think or pause it
take the wheels off
of it for a month that kind of thing siphon the gas out of the tank you know
like that kind of thing
put sugar in it i think they're like that kind of thing you know what are you
most afraid of with it
or is it just that we're not going to have purpose and we don't know how it's
all going to go yeah i
mean those are some of the huge parts but i think like there's like um probably
that i think that in
the end i think there's a general feeling of like well if all the trucking jobs
disappear you know if
those become automated and um and like yeah if everything becomes a robo tax
like you know will
that feel you know where will those people go for jobs will everybody just be
dancing on tick tock
trying to get people to tip them for trends and stuff you know like as part of
that i had this dream
years ago that it all ends with everybody's driving an uber and literally
holding each other at gunpoint
to be each other's passengers right like get in my car because that's how bad
like somebody's like i
need the fare more than you do you know my whole family's in the back seat sit
shotgun we'll get
you to where you know like people are literally holding each other at gunpoint
to subscribe to their
only fans and stuff like it's just that um dystopian or whatever um so i guess
part of that but then
there's a deeper part where it's like yeah what comes out of us if it feels
like a lot of the
regular stuff that gives us purpose that we know right now gives us purpose is
there a new evolution
of our purpose is there like a blooming inside of us is it this utopian place
that you almost think of
as like a heaven idea where you know people are fed and have enough you know
can are provided for can
take care of themselves i guess that's that that's it or what because purpose
gives people work work
gives people so much of their purpose and so for to lose those things what is
it what happens you know
and i know i kind of keep asking that over and over again you don't really have
the answers and that's
it's okay yeah of course how could you we're not in the future i mean i think
people really do
love to be useful to each other and people love to express their creativity as
part of that and
as the long-term trend of society getting richer has continued more people i
think are able to do
get closer to sort of expressing themselves in the best way that they can maybe
like
you know as recently as five or six hundred years ago not very many people got
to be artists
the world wasn't that rich there were a limited number of patrons that could
like pay you to create
art but there were more than zero and before that there were almost none and
then you got this
beautiful italian renaissance and all this amazing art because there was like
excess capital in the
world and now a lot more people can be artists or a lot more people can start
startups which is another
like for me that's like my expression of creativity right um or more people can
create content yeah uh and
and this idea that people can find whatever way they can to express themselves
their talent their vision
for kind of collective love of other people and a care for putting their brick
in society's progress
i think that can go really far now what art in the future looks like now that
ai can make art
or help make art i don't know it'll probably be kind of different what startups
will look like in the
future when people can kind of just say whatever they want to their ai and it
can make the software for
them right then it will kind of be different but but i think it's such a bad
bet to assume that either
human creativity or human fulfillment from being useful to other people ends i
think we're just we
stay on this exponential and like each year each decade our collective standard
of living goes way up
the whole world gets way richer we all get more we all expect more and
even over like the course i was thinking recently like food is so much better
than it is when i was
a kid like the world has just figured out how to make food better like we've
you know know how to
we figured out organic vegetables or whatever it is i don't know it just tastes
much better
and like i think that's great i don't want to go back to eating like the frozen
carrots or whatever
yeah i guess that's a good point but then there's some like i saw this thing
the other day it was
like a kit they had like one of those robo kitchens or whatever you know when
you order food from
like something dash or whatever and then you uh but it's like hank's ribs and
then it's like marty's
pizza and then it's like susan's salami shop but they're all the same place you
know and when you
get that from window dash yeah uh you don't you don't like you feel like
something's missing right
you're like ah this is fake i can tell i get less enjoyment you would rather
get that food from like
the dude who's been making it and perfecting it on the you know that little
pizza shop on the corner
for the last 20 years right because that's like part of like that dude is part
of the experience
that authenticity is part of the experience right i don't think that goes away
with a like fake
robotic thing okay yeah because i think i start to feel like we're in this
universe where it's like
you're walking down the street or something and like a waymo goes by and it's
like eat now and you're
like but and you already did eat it's just got a bad reading or something it's
got a bad valve
in it or something you're like yelling at it there's nobody in there and you're
like i already
ate it's like sit down and eat now and it just like uses like a t-shirt cannon
to just like
shoot a burrito at yours and then you're sitting there you're eating that you
know and then the glp
car goes by right it says i can help you out yes and it's like obviously you've
overeat and you're
like i didn't even want to eat that thing's messed up right you're yelling at a
car that has no driver in
it and then it shoots you with three glp one darts in the neck and now your
wife doesn't even recognize
you when you get home or whatever you know the fact that you find this so
off-putting i think is a sign for optimism yeah like that's a good point you're
wired you're gonna
be resistant to that that's not gonna make you happy that's not gonna make
other people happy
now maybe we get tricked like social media tricked us for a while we got too
addicted to feeds whatever
but we realized like actually this is not helping me be my best you know like
doing the equivalent of
getting the like burrito can into my mouth on my phone at night like that's not
making me long-term
happy right and that's not helping me like really accomplish my true goals in
life and i think if ai
does that people will reject it however if chat gpt really helps you to figure
out what your true goals
in life are and then accomplish those you know it says hey you've said you want
to be a better father
or a better you know you want to be in better shape or you you don't want to
like grow your business um
if you want we can change that goal and i can help you scroll tick tock all
night or you know
eat the burritos or whatever and i'll give you the glp one shots and i'll make
you as healthy as you can
but like maybe instead i can try to help convince you you should go for a run
tonight
and i think if ai feels like it is helping you try to accomplish your goals and
be your best
that will feel very different than the last generation of technology yeah
and you know what and that's why i'm like and that's where a kid growing up
right now to them
that would probably some young people might be like that makes the most sense i'm
a little older
generation i might be like oh that seems a little but that's always how things
are with generation
and generation always how it goes yeah you're right and maybe this is just like
a quicker evolution of
things and for young people it's going to make so much sense and for older
people it's an energy
just get off my you know avatar lawn or something you know but that's the way
of societal
progress that's just how it goes right that's just how it goes right that's
just how it goes good point