I keep hearing about how AI is supposed to create more jobs than it replaces, but I haven’t seen anyone give real examples of these jobs. Have you? If they are so confident about more jobs coming, shouldn’t they at least have an idea of what those jobs would look like? Honestly, I’m struggling to see how this will work.
When steam engines came along, the world was a different place. Over time, we’ve shifted more toward expert or knowledge-based work, and even now, there are lots of people who can’t do those types of jobs. If AI is going to make even those jobs unnecessary, what will be left for people to do?
I recently read about computer science students worried about their futures, and the response was basically, “Don’t worry, only boring, repetitive jobs will be automated.” But then they listed things like programming and math as examples. Seriously? These are university students studying hard topics. Are we just going to label that kind of work as conveyor belt tasks now? And if so, will these students really be able to find jobs with bigger responsibilities when they graduate?
AI makes people capable of things they couldn’t do before. It’s not just about new jobs—it’s about people doing things they never could.
For example, anyone can now do basic coding, create art, write songs, or even make a movie. It’s a massive productivity boost, and it could help even things out financially. A person doesn’t have to be rich to make a movie anymore, and they get to keep the profits too.
It’s tricky to predict. Oddly enough, AI might make some things cheaper, which could lead to increased demand. That might create more jobs.
Take airlines, for example. Flying used to be super expensive, so not many people did it. But as costs dropped, more people started flying, and now the industry employs tons of workers.
Of course, this only works until we hit a point where robots and AI can do everything. Until then, some industries might see huge growth.
@mikey.47
The movie idea is interesting. But if we go from 500 people working on one movie to just a couple using AI, what happens to all the others who lose their jobs? Sure, they could make their own movies, but there’s only so much time people can spend watching movies.
I read somewhere that over 9,000 games were added to Steam last year, but most of them were never played by many people. It feels like even the best stuff gets buried in the flood.
I don’t mind jobs being replaced by tech, but the economy needs to adjust somehow. I once heard China banned street-sweeping machines to create jobs. That’s not the way to go either.
A lot of people might end up working on training AI. For example, take a customer service rep today—they could eventually move to training the AI that replaces them, tweaking it so it gets better at helping customers.
Now imagine this happening across thousands of industries. People with a mix of job-specific knowledge and AI skills might be in high demand.
Eventually, we might all have our own AI models doing work for us—kind of like freelance AI agents working around the clock.
@Tyler
Couldn’t AI train itself eventually? For example, it could simulate millions of customer interactions in virtual setups and learn from that, right?
Also, why do people always say there will be more jobs? Even if we adapt, I’m not convinced the number of jobs will actually increase.