What, How, Why, and AI

For most of humanity's existence, we've simply done what we've had to do. Over generations, we learned things, and passed those skills down. A small group sharing how to do what we had to do.

All this time the why has been pretty consistent. Safety, shelter, water, food, and if you were so lucky, a mate - and thereby the species persists. Even the relatively recent shared fictions of an economy and capitalism didn't change the why itself, just how we keep score.

As AI continues to accelerate, we may be upon the precipice of a world where most of the what and even most of the how is done for us. For a time, we may invent new hows, but most of us will, hopefully, have the luxuries of time and safety to explore why.

What will our world look like when the why isn't taken for granted? When mere survival and clambering for status are made functionally obsolete?