What happens to the purpose of a human once they have made a tool that helps them do something?

When we invented the stone spear to hunt animals, this may have slowly reduced the need for skills like stealth, patience, trapping, and maybe even hand-to-hand combat. The spear allowed us to attack from a distance. It changed what it meant to hunt.

This is what every tool does, it changes what it means to do something.

The plow extended our farming ability, but distanced us from wild foraging.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) gave us unprecedented navigation, but reduced the need for spatial awareness and memory.

The calculator gave us perfect, fast numerical processing, but reduced the need for mental arithmetic.

Tools improve our efficiency, but also change what it means to do something.

Without a doubt, the plow, the clock, GPS, and calculators have improved our lives. I am sure that in a parallel universe where these things or similar things were never invented, the average standard of living would be worse.

However, say we conduct a though experiment and continue this trend to infinity. As we move forward, the tools we have created can do everything we used to do. Instead of driving the plow, we watch while a tool does this for us. Instead of looking at the GPS, we watch a tool follow the GPS for us. Instead of entering inputs into a calculator, we just watch a tool set up the equation and receive the answer.

At infinity, what does this mean for humans? What is there left for us to do? This thought experiment always brings me back to the humans from the movie “WALL-E” (if you haven’t seen this, an image search will be all you need to know).

I also wonder if my feeling now is the same feeling people had when the first plow, GPS service, and calculator was released. Is my feeling a unique one to this moment in human history, or is it simply a repeat of how humans feel when their purpose is disrupted?

The one thing I know is that the answer should be one that comes soon.