In The In-Between

(This is the third post in a series on the human cost of artificial intelligence)

There’s a place more and more people are finding themselves in now. A kind of drift space. The old job is thinning out. The new one hasn’t appeared. It’s neither here nor there, but it’s not nothing. This is “The In-Between”: the stretch where work disappears quietly and nothing quite replaces it yet.

You hear a phrase repeated like background music. Played softly behind the slides, tucked into forecasts, murmured in keynotes and roundtables by people in smart suits who don’t have much time: “Don’t worry. Yes, jobs will go, but new ones will appear in their place.”

Sometimes it comes dressed as encouragement. Sometimes it’s said with a shrug. Either way, it’s meant to calm people down. A soothing line to get us through the awkward bit. But more and more, it doesn’t feel that way with people who may be affected.

Of course, people question it. Some quietly. Others out loud, if they’re in the kind of room where it feels safe. And not because they’re hostile to change or stuck in the past. It’s not that they’re “Luddites”. They question it because it doesn’t match what they’re seeing. The idea that something new just arrives to fill the gap might sound good in a report, or a speech, but it rarely plays out that smoothly. It skips the awkward middle. The wait. The fear. The dragging months between the last payslip and whatever might come next.

Because the in-between isn’t theoretical. It’s lived. It’s flats with mould and windows that don’t close. It’s kids with coughs that won’t go away. It’s overdrafts and frayed nerves. People are realistic. They’re not asking for a world that never shifts. They’re just tired of being told that the shift won’t hurt. They want to feel considered. Valued.

The reassurance has become a reflex. “Jobs will go, but don’t worry, new ones are on the way.” But no-one says what kind of jobs. Or who they’ll suit. Or how long you’re expected to hold your breath while they arrive.

Yes, you can tritely name historical examples. Talk about looms, steam, computers, spreadsheets. And they’re all true; although they didn’t all come at once. Or across so many sectors like AI. And anyway, most people aren’t characters in an economics textbook. They’re people who cook their tea while checking their phones for updates from recruiters. People who delete another rejected application and immediately start the next one. People who don’t have time for the theory because they’re busy working out how to stretch three days’ worth of food across five. That's the reality.

That same line shows up in government documents, in management blogs, in breezy social media posts written by people who’ve never had to retrain at fifty. It’s often said with a kind of bright tone. But there’s a coldness under it. As if saying it is enough. There’s no empathy behind the words. No understanding of the human cost.

It’s easy to say the work will come. It’s harder to explain what people should do while they wait. Or how they’re meant to pay for that waiting.

This space. the in-between, is where things get heavy. Not all at once. It’s slower than that. But it takes its toll, physically and mentally. A man stops getting up early. His kids stop asking about new school shoes. A woman watches online tutorials in a cold kitchen s she can't afford the heating. A couple argue over a water bill not because either of them has failed, but because the safety net gave way weeks ago.

It’s not dramatic. That’s why it’s easy to miss. But it’s also where people lose more than just money. It’s where they start losing themselves a little. Some people never recover.

You won’t find it on official forms. You won’t see it on the news. But this is the part where things really break down. When you don’t know who you are anymore. When you’re not sure what you’re for.

Retraining works. Sometimes. But it’s rarely fast, and it’s never simple. You need time, yes, but you also need belief. That the effort will lead somewhere. That the job still exists when the training ends. That someone, somewhere, will give you a shot. You hope they will, but there's that lingering doubt in the back of your mind.

We talk a lot about opportunity. We rarely talk about exhaustion. Exhaustion in people who have gone through countless re-organisations. Countless re-applying for their own roles. Countless need for up-skilling. Countless re-defining of roles.

There’s an idea, often repeated, that people can be shuffled around like chess pieces on a board. Retrain them here. Move them there. It’s tidy in theory. But people don’t move like that. They have weight. Friction. Past experience. Personal pride. They don’t all want the same thing. And even when they do, not everyone takes to the same tools. Not everyone has the same energy.

Take prompt engineering, for instance. We’re told it’s the next big thing. Good pay. Open to all. But the reality is different. It’s not just about typing. It’s about thinking in a way that suits abstraction. It’s about comfort with mess, with language as logic, with goals that keep shifting.

There are skilled people who are sharp, careful, steady. They won’t take to that kind of work. Not because they’re behind, but because their judgement comes through touch. Through repetition. Through physical presence. You can’t always translate that into code and queries.

Some try. They sign up for courses. They log in to group sessions. They sit in front of slides they don’t understand while their confidence drips away. That demoralises. It can be soul destroying.

Others don’t even start. Not because they’re unwilling, but because they can’t even see the first step. They don’t know what to do. They don’t understand what’s happening. No one has handed them a torch.

That’s what “reskill” really means to most people: take a gamble. Invest time and money you probably don’t have. Learn something you might not enjoy, or even understand. And hope the role is still open by the time you’re ready, if you ever are.

It’s not laziness that slows people down. It’s mismatch. Misfit. Uncertainty. Past experience.

If training really could turn anyone into anything, we’d all be in high-paid, flexible, future-facing jobs by now. Or we’d all be concert pianists, or world class singers, or successful entrepreneurs. But we’re not. Why? Because we’re not all shaped the same. Some people thrive in fluid, digital spaces. Others don’t. And that isn’t failure. It’s difference. It's what makes us human.

If the only people who succeed in the new economy are those who code quickly and speak fluently and switch tasks with ease, we risk discarding too much. And in terms of people, too many.

This isn’t evolution. It’s erosion.

Even where good jobs do exist, the path to reach them is usually invisible. The applications take hours. The feedback never comes. The savings run out. The gas bill arrives anyway.

Most of what’s painful in the in-between isn’t newsworthy. It’s small. Quiet. It sounds like: “Maybe we skip the heating tonight.” “I’ll get the bus if I find change.” “Is this workshop worth it, or just another dead end?”

That’s the kind of harm that doesn’t get counted. But it counts.

And while that plays out in kitchens and front rooms and buses and cheap cafes, the headlines carry on. Talking about bright futures. Talking about frictionless transitions.

But without access, those futures stay imaginary.

Policy often misses the middle. It plans for the destination. Not the journey. Not the dragging weeks between redundancy and re-employment. Not the long spells of wondering if it’s already too late.

There is support. Sometimes. But it’s often awkward. Short-term. Hidden behind paperwork. Dependent on the right timing. The right box ticked.

And while all that’s ticking over?

You worry. You ration. You tell your kids it’s fine. You look at a job you’re not suited to and consider applying anyway, just to keep things moving.

Education is usually offered as the answer. And in some cases, it is.

But it moves slowly. Course content takes years to catch up. Many of the jobs in the brochures no longer exist. Many of the ones that do exist aren’t understood well enough to be taught yet.

Teachers and lecturers try. But they’re stretched. Working with outdated frameworks. Under pressure from all sides.

Colleges try too. They run evening classes in rooms with flickering lights and windows that don’t close. Helping people who haven’t studied since the nineties. Doing the graft that rarely gets noticed.

Schools are caught in the tide. One week it’s “use AI.” Next week: “ban it.” One teacher runs with it. Another isn’t sure what’s allowed. The whole system is trying to adapt while balancing on one foot.

And even if all that worked. Even if education caught up, the training was free, and the course fit like a glove, there’s still the larger question.

What are we actually training people for?

We risk focusing too much on the technical. Coding. Prompting. Tools. And there’s a place for that. But the real shift is subtler.

Because as machines take on more, those skills stop being the thing that sets you apart.

What’s left? The human stuff.

Things like:

Some reports now mention these qualities more than coding. Not the flashy traits. The steady ones. The ones that carry people through the in-between.

It means we should be asking new questions.

That kind of thinking reshapes how we hire. How we build teams. How we define readiness.

Because the people who will build the future aren’t just the fastest or the most technical. They’ll be the ones who don’t fold when the ground shifts.

And if we do nothing?

We’ll end up with a workforce that looks trained on paper but feels hollow in practice. And might not be what we need anyway.

We’ll have people who have passed the tests. Who say the right things. But who still don’t believe they belong. Because no one asked them what they needed to get there. That’s not the best result, or the best way to get there.

This isn’t a tech issue. It’s a human one.

Empathy isn’t extra. It’s essential to protecting and supporting people. People who find themselves in the in-between.

If you’ve never lost work while looking after a parent. If you’ve never applied for a job with a ten-year gap. If you’ve never seen application after application rejected because you are too old despite your skills. If you’ve never sat in a training room feeling like the thickest person there. If this isn’t your experience then maybe don’t write your next business strategy alone.

Because no matter how slick the tools you have, they only matter if people still feel they have a place they belong. Where they feel understood. Valued.

And that’s where the work needs to begin.

Not with glossy forecasts or abstract graphs. Not with declarations about jobs that don’t yet exist.

But in the in-between: the space where old work is slipping away and new roles are still half-formed. That’s where people are stuck. Where energy drains out. Where doubt creeps in and ordinary life becomes harder to hold together.

It’s easy to plan for outcomes. Much harder to stand inside the mess with people. But that’s what this moment needs: not another slogan, but a willingness to take the in-between seriously.

Because if we pay attention there, if we really look, we still have choices. We can shape that space instead of pretending it doesn’t matter. We can fund it, light it, make it navigable for people who feel most at risk. We can make sure the journey from one kind of work to another doesn’t leave people feeling erased in the middle.

It can be a place of preparation instead of drift. A place where people still feel seen. Still feel valuable. Still feel part of what comes next.

The in-between won’t go away. But it doesn’t have to be so bleak.