no, AI will not "kill 300 million jobs" (sorry media)

because technology never works like that

there is an old adage:

• when strangers lose their jobs, it’s a slowdown.

• when your neighbor loses their job, it’s a recession.

• when you lose your job, it’s a depression!

it’s always a calamity when it hits home.

it is therefore worthwhile to consider the source when listening to dire prognostications about technology “killing jobs” because schumpeterian creative destruction is always and everywhere the name of the economic game but this will not stop those currently in the crosshairs from finding it unpleasant and when those people happen to be the ones who “buy ink by the barrel” (or perhaps pixels by the passel?) you can expect an fulsome fusillade of media pearl clutching.

but it’s neither anything new nor anything to worry about.

the literal point of technology is to eliminate jobs.

always was.

how many jobs did the tractor take from famers?

the cotton mill, the dishwasher, the forklift, the stamping press? how many did they take?

the fabric mill, the assembly line, the robot?

and yet we never run out of jobs.

goods and services get cheaper in real terms and new jobs are created.

and we struggle finding enough “good people to hire.” it’s a top problem near everywhere in the developed world.

people used to spend an astounding amount of time making clothes to the point where fathers would will “my shirt” to grateful children. it was an incredibly valuable possession.

and to my son, bjorn cattson, i leave my shirt for it is time he had one of his own…

women (this was women’s work in the day, sorry ladies) spent so much time washing and scrubbing clothes by hand or spinning yarn or weaving cloth that it was a literal social fabric.

dishwashing? ditto.

cooking? yup.

farming? my god, these were jobs people hated so much they were lining up to apply to work 16 hour shifts at victorian mills because it was better.

and despite technology doing things like "eliminating 99% of agricultural jobs which used to be over 90% of all jobs," i doubt anyone can name 3 technologies that ever caused lasting, structural unemployment on a societal basis.

can you even name one?

take it from an internet cat (the literal foundation of AI, or did you think humans were running the web?) AI is going to be no different.

#TheFutureIsFeline

when technology “takes jobs” plenty is increased, resources are reallocated, and the whole pool and standard of living rises. do you want to give back your contractor’s power tools so that more people with hammers and shovels can be hired? no. because that’s crazy.

human labor is a finite resource and prosperity comes from making more with less. clothing is now so cheap that i don’t even bother sending back half the stuff i buy online and don’t like. i just dump it in goodwill.

you do not get that without technology nor do you get all the time back on washing it or washing dishes. sure, some washerfolk and scullions lost their jobs, but they got new ones, real buying power is WAY up, and is anyone here chomping at the bit to grab a scrubber and start earning their keep? thought not.

and sure, the fact that AI can generate images now to make memes on demand (all the images in this piece apart from the classic first meme were generated with text driven AI) may be a bummer for graphic designers, but come on, there is a zero percent chance i just paid someone to create “a viking cat writes on a parchment” much less one scrubbing dishes.

we’re just getting WAY more stuff because it’s now quick, cheap, and easy. no way i took the time to do this with photoshop.

it would have been tedious and time consuming. maybe there would be 1 or 2.

but not like this.

i have more fun, you get more memes.

and off we go.

ain’t futurism grand?

it’s a dirty business

i mean, look, i could send this all to you on hand illuminated vellum made by the parchment guild and written by monks, but 4 of you would get one missive a month and it would cost you a week of a normal laborer’s wages.

that’s life without technology taking jobs.

news reporters that write trite summative stories about the news of the day? well, they just happen to be next in line. and it’s not like that has not been a melting iceberg for decades as jobs get cut, pay gets slashed, and the insightful ones that command an audience run out and start substacks and starting making real money.

those jobs of regular rote reporting are exactly what a society should WANT to have AI take. they were obviously declining in value and it’s not like we’re thrilled with the product as is.

the same is true of all kinds of annoying guild things like accounting, taxes, legal, etc. the legal industry in particular has a serious penchant for selling the same document over and over again at bespoke prices. ask anyone who just shelled out $300k for the same basic term sheet they used the last 15 times. disintermediating guilds is a GREAT part of technology. do you have any idea what hand made shoes cost?

and goldman? well, they have IPO’s to sell and mergers to do and big tech companies to pander to. is their report right? who knows. would they have written it anyway? you bet your socks they would. “disruptive technology” sells.

but technology makes the rich richer!

yup. it does. but it makes everyone richer and the poor benefit FAR more than the rich. the rockefllers did not waste time washing dishes or collars. they had people for that and they wasted THEIR time. everyone else had to waste it too. but now, they don’t. technology is a massive equalizer of standard of living.

the living standard of a middle class amercian today far closer to that of bill gates than a yeoman farmer's was to the lord of the castle.

bill might have a bigger house than you do and bigger boat and a private plane but you basically have the same TV, cell phone, ability to fly, and food availability that he does. you have a comfy place to live that is warm in winter, cool in summer, and you have plenty of clothes to wear. if you get strep throat, you get the same antibiotics. your life expectancy is about the same.

whatever was the province of the very rich 20 years ago is an “everyone has” with most technologies. it just sometimes varies in degree. yes, maybe you flew coach, but you still went to hawaii. think your great grandparents had a shot at that?

so great is our plenty, that we inhabit the first societies on earth where the poor are obese. the entire concept of “poor” has been so radically re-written that an american middle class home is so stuffed full of things that not even kings could have had 200 years ago that we do not even see them.

once “computer” was a job description.

now it’s an appliance.

guess which one the poor had zero access to before and which they can almost all access now? (at least in rich, technologically advanced countries)

“mario cat”

but this one will be too fast!

they said that about radio, TV, cell phones, internet, and every other tech i can think of in recent decades.

they were all faster.

none killed employment or standard of living.

the only way technology replaces a job is by making what that job made better and cheaper. that means a bigger pie.

and bigger pie is progress. there is no other way.

the idea of "technology killing jobs" is luddite thinking.

the idea that it will somehow crush the “good jobs” even more so.

this plain old never happens.

instead, it creates the good life.

income rises, buying power rises, and the tide lifts all boats (though never in the arrangement they were on before).

trying to predict the new alignment has always been a fool’s errand and doing so with AI more than most. you just cannot know what new wealth will create demand for.

but you can know that it will create demand for something.

and it’s going to be cool.