Man’s Search for Meaning in the Age of Machines Work, Worth, and the Human Soul After Productivity

What happens to meaning when work disappears?

In this long-form episode of Philosophy for Better Humans, Charles Sebastian Whitby explores the philosophy of Viktor Frankl through one of the defining questions of our time: What gives a human life meaning in an age of artificial intelligence and automation?

Frankl survived the concentration camps having lost everything society uses to define worth — profession, productivity, status, usefulness. And yet, he discovered something radical: meaning does not come from what we produce, but from how we respond to life itself.

As AI reshapes work, identity, and usefulness, this episode brings Frankl’s wisdom into the modern world — exploring why anxiety rises when productivity fades, why freedom without meaning becomes emptiness, and why the future may need meaning more than intelligence.

This episode is a cinematic, story-driven exploration of:

• Meaning beyond work and productivity
• AI, automation, and the crisis of human worth
• Frankl’s insights from Man’s Search for Meaning
• The existential vacuum of modern life
• Responsibility, dignity, and the “last human freedom”
• What remains when usefulness disappears

This is not an episode about technology. It is an episode about being human — when the old answers no longer hold.