The New Life Stages
AI Is Redrawing the Map of Human Life | Babu George Strategy and Society AI Is Redrawing the Map of Human Life For two centuries we sorted lives by labor: before work, at work, after work. The AI era sorts them by something else entirely, and six new life stages are replacing the ones your institutions were built on. by Babu George July 2026 · 12 min read Idea in Brief The Problem The life stages our institutions are built on (childhood, adolescence, career, retirement) were inventions of the industrial economy. AI has broken the assumptions behind them. A 15-year-old can now ship professional work. A 58-year-old with rare judgment has no institutional role. Neither has a name for the stage of life they are in. The Insight Industrial society sorted lives by labor. The AI era sorts them by the gap between granted power (what technology lets you do) and earned judgment (what experi...