End of work as we know it
The topic of how AI will impact our job markets is running hot. There are strong opinions going back and forth. And of course no one actually knows yet. There are figures like S&P 500 compared to job openings after the lauch of ChatGPT, wage growth of occupations with AI exposure and Gartners 2025 AI jobs impacts analysis. For example: Gartner predictics that “there will be no ‘jobs apocalypse’ due to AI - but there will be job chaos” with a prediction of AI creating more jobs in 2029 than destroying them.
Headlines love these kind of a topics. They can predict doom on the first day and then call it off the second day by referring to some new data point. I worry that people see these headlines as just one topic among others. Where as I feel, that this topic is larger, more heavier. A topic that has the potential to impact our societies in a profound way.
That also makes it scary. And at the same time, the topic is hard to visualize or comprehend. Thus people tend to ingore it? “Oh, this seems bad… lets not think about it, hope everything goes well”.
For me, Gartners prediction reflects this kind of thinking (Check the link for the figure). Gradual linear growth in lost jobs would reflect our unability to fully utilize the benefits AI has to offer. It seems to extrapolate our current challenges and bottlenecks with utilizing AI over the following years. This feels… wrong. Current implementation challenges are not permanent and benefits will grow more exponentially. And loss of jobs would, I fear, follow this, but not as linearly as described. I could be over estimating our ability to adopt this technology, but at the same time, we only need a small group to take the first step and to kind of inflict the change that others are forced to follow.
If I would happen to be right, and Gartners figure would be, well, playing it safe. We should be prepared for some drastic changes. There will not be “single variable” changes. Where things change one a time. Like “not as many legal profession jobs were destroyed”. But rather a multitude of changes overlapping each other. And now, I’m moving away from predicting the amount of jobs destroyed (I dont know). And more into how things could change. Not maybe, how many jobs are destroyed, but where they are destroyed. And what would that mean for our workforce and by extension to our societies.
Like in the field of legal profession it is predicted that productivity will rise and prices will lower due to AI. And at the same time lower prices will create more demand. Work and related jobs could actually grow. But there is delay and uncertainty with demand growth. Experienced workers would do well, while entry level jobs would be impacted. Same dynamic could be seen in other fields. And what I worry about, it this shift in boundaries to entry and access to work. How societies need more resilience to digest the “job chaos” that is coming. To make opportunities available and to limit the gap between those affected, and those that are lucky. And now to my prediction, followed by a scenario:
I predict:
That in near future. Changes in technology will impact our societies more profoundly than we can yet comprehend. We do not fully grasp, the tidal wave of changes, that are imminent. We should be preparing now.
We now live in a world where intelligence can be accessed from a push of a button and vast research can be invoked with simple questions on a chat. Technology is leaping forward and the ramifications are yet to occur.
Some where in near future (a scenario):
Waymo has expanded to all major cities in the developed world. Waymo and similar operators are carrying the bulk of all taxi rides. People rather choose a Waymo late at night, not due to its flawless safety records, but simply because they feel safer in an empty car, rather than with a stranger behind the wheel. When these services entered the cities, they also pushed all food couriers out of business. It’s not just hail rides and food deliveries, logistics as an industry is taking on a new shape. Hail rides and food deliveries just represent the “easy to enter” jobs within logistics industry that no longer exist.
At this point EU starts requiring that part of the self-driving cars are European made. Finally we see some positive tics on Volkswagens shares as their MOIA designed self-driving cars gain traction. It’s simply too big of a risk for EU, that most of transportation and logistics be performed by a handful of foreign companies. They also require, that in case the cars lose connection to the datacenters “across the atlantic” the cars could be driven in an “old-fashioned way” using the steering wheel and pedals. Eventhough some politicians are already demanding that cars “driven the old-fashioned way” be limited to sealed off sports tracks. Possibly due to heavy lobbying by the self-driving car companies with their perfect safety records.
While the debate about “are people allowed to drive the old-fashioned way” is making headlines. Self-driving trucks are increasingly taking over truck driving operations. And there’s some new cargo onboard these trucks. They’re carrying the latest patch of humanoid robots from Unitree’s factories in China. These humanoid robots are quickly gaining popularity across industries due to their versatile applications and productivity benefits. The hourly costs is yet to reach 1€ per hour as predicted by an article in Kauppalehti as the cost is still hovering around 5€ per hour. This is only due to current supply shortages, support and maintenance services costs and the sheer lack of automation experts. But the direction is clear. Manual labour even in its dynamic and variable form is being automated. One does not need to hire people, but can rather subscribe to a monthly subsription for 20 hours of manual labour performed by a humanoid robot. Conveniently delivered to your bakery/storage/factory on request and per demand. Slowly cutting off another “easy to enter” job market from our graps.
All this is happening at the same time as large number of companies are actually starting to reap the automation benefits that AI has to offer. White collar workers are laid off from previously lucrative positions. As “traditional work” only dating a few years back is becoming redundant in the fields of IT, Accounting, Legal and over all business operations. New work, of the “AI era”, is yet to gain ground or even, yet to be discovered. At this point, companies do not yet recognize new opportunities and re-training people simply takes a lot of time. Also the economy measures job numbers tightly and thus the widespread loss of jobs is measured quicker that the productivity impacts are realized below the line. Therefore somewhat counterintuitively (given their productivity rise), companies are more cautious and pushing for more cost savings rather than new investments. Companies seem to rather play it safe while governments would need them to invest and open new positions. And now, there are no taxi jobs to fall back on. Societies are facing a new situation.
The wave of “traditional jobs” being killed is outpacing the wave of new “AI era” jobs being generated, by a mile. These waves are so out of sync that societies are impacted heavily due to unemployment and the fear related to employment prospects. Misinformation and populism runs rampant. If only our governments and institutions would’ve seen this coming!
Why this matters?
I feel this scenario is very feasible. Hopefully just not as dark as I described it. We need to understand this kind of possible scenarios and decide how we are to face them. As we will face them, in some form, in the near future.
Talking about these scenarios and the ramifications they entail. Is not to go against the progress. I’d say the more we understand the potential, the better we can reap the benefits and keep the disadvantages at bay. While the technology and its adaptation progresses our societies need to have the discussion on how the transition phase will be faced. Do we let the forces of market dictate what happens? I myself feel that we need to have some kind of a playbook. I might be overly optimistic about the adaptation speed. But if and when the waves hit us the hardest, we’d have some tools to apply.
Why we need to move?
I have come across a tendency of thinking that “these waves wont happen as quick” or that “we don’t need to go along with them”. I fear this is wrong. Let me explain. We simply cannot pick and choose only the good parts or move in a pace that is comfortable for us. Or to go along as if nothing is happening. Hoping this will not impact our daily lives.
The thing is, that others will. They will move, and they will move fast. As in, they will try to get every ounce of productivity gain there is get from these technologies. And if they move, and we do not: Our comparable relative productivity will plummet. So, we need to keep in pace, in order to stay competitive. Thus, it is simply not a choice. We need to ensure our productivity and competitiveness stays as close as possible to even our toughest competition.
Is it all about competitiveness?
Yes, and no. A good economy enables wellbeing. It pays for our children’s hospitals and pre-emptive cancer scans. I believe competitive companies enable a well functioning state and society. Should all bow before the competitiveness of our companies? Of course not. There needs to be a balance from which the companies benefit aswell. And this is why we need to prepare for the tidal wave coming our way.
We should come up with a playbook on how to tackle this change in the most graceful manner possible. As I fear this will impact all of our lives. It will most probably hurt or at least get us off guard. No one likes losing their jobs and few people are saving enough to face it. But this change is also, not without it benefits. If we get beyond the “transition period” well intact, the future will be really abundant, also with its new challenges. Will there even be work as we currently know it?
We are facing the overall progress whether we want it or not. Changes could hurt us, but the overall productivity gains are so huge that the sum should total a positive, for all of us.
A bit different kind of text this time. Hope you enjoyed it and I hope it made you think. I have some more to say about this subject and will continue with some follow ups. This text was more about “over all progress” and I want to touch more about the “human point of view”. Please send me a message or a thumbs up in LinkedIn if you liked it.
