What would you miss in a world without work?

In 2038, the Human Relief Project is using AI to eradicate labor, freeing people from jobs, one relief facility at a time. Bert, after years of struggle, finally believes he’s found purpose as a Project Conductor. But every profession he helps relieve leaves new fractures: a new partner who keeps pressing him with hard questions, a mother unmoored after her own relief, and friends and family split over what progress should look like.

Meanwhile Alex, the Project's new leader, faces fierce opposition as she pushes toward a workless future most can’t yet imagine. With Hive, the Project’s central AI, she removes one obstacle after another — stubborn politicians, greedy governments, a wary public — believing a world without work is worth the painful discomfort of change.

As global relief nears completion, events on the world stage and in Bert’s childhood home converge, pulling Alex and Bert into a shared crisis that forces a reckoning with purpose, dignity, and what we owe one another when work is no longer the measure of a life.

Set in a plausible near future shaped by AI, The Human Relief Project is a tense, human story about identity, meaning, and the costs — and promise — of progress. It ultimately asks: If work ends, what remains of us? And who gets to decide?