The Death of Work is Overstated

People are super excited about the emergence of AI.

Excited – but not always in a good way. The news is full of headlines saying that most knowledge work will not exist in a couple of years, and even robots are coming for traditional jobs like drivers and factory workers. So what is safe?

I don’t think we’re looking at mass unemployment.

I just don’t see it.

I’m willing to bet that, in 5 years, we will have the same number of developers working as we do today. That most managers, CEOs, executives, executive assistants, lawyers, accountants, etc…. will still have jobs.

Now, maybe your lawyer will use AI to review contracts before making recommendations for edits, saving everyone some time and cost. (Just kidding, it will save time but not cost. The AI has an hourly billing rate equal to that of your lawyer’s junior assistant today.)

Your accountant will use some type of AI to process your expenses. Developers will use AI and agents to code.

Authors will use AI to write. Teachers will use AI assistants to help students learn.

My prediction is that the jobs are not all going away. It’s just “the job uses AI to do some things”.

Anyways, that’s my prediction.