A lawyer is like a religious person: they operate within the basket of “things we already know.”

Some people only play in “things we don’t know yet” — the literal unknown. Doing something nobody has ever done before. Thinking about things nobody has ever thought about.

Knowledge is the most important thing in the world. Knowledge is more important in evolution than evolution itself.

For example:

• Imagine a single group of humans. Half of them know you should boil water first, and the other half doesn’t.

• Or consider the search for new weapons of mass destruction.

It’s very hard for people to grasp that we actually know almost nothing. Thinking and thoughts are multidimensional. We might think we know something about events from thousands of years ago, but no matter how many skeletons you dig up, there are things you simply cannot see — like what people used to think about, for instance.

Back to the lawyer and the plumber. To be a good plumber, you actually need something we often overlook: good fine motor skills. To be a good lawyer, you don’t need any physical traits.

This is why we admire great skateboarders more than lawyers: what they do is genuinely difficult.

I think this is also why AI can replace some jobs fairly easily. It can’t replace your cleaner, but it can replace your lawyer.

Make sure you never let AI replace the thing we are best at: emotions. Being emotional. Feeling compassion. Feeling sadness. That’s what being human is about.