As we enter this next wave, I keep thinking of Robert Pirsig—author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—and his argument that Quality is the bridge between rational systems and lived human experience.
Pirsig would not resist technological progress. He would agree that we must adapt. But he would also likely insist—loudly—that how we adapt matters more than that we adapt. In today’s AI race, where speed to market often trumps reflection, that distinction couldn’t be more urgent. We not only put at risk the success of the very initiatives we’re racing to deploy. We risk optimizing away the very things that make work meaningful: attention, care, responsibility.