These days it's easy to explain. It seems AI is coming for our work. Even occupations previously considered an easy path to a middle-class lifestyle, such as lawyers and radiologists, can be subject to AI chopping blocks. However, these stories, despite their flashy headlines, miss the nuances. They look at the seen (and likely) consequences of the AI revolution, but miss the invisible “what's coming” part of the story. Every historical episode of creative destruction involves both creativity and destruction. However, current news articles focus solely on destruction. While it may be hard to see how AI will revolutionize the American workforce, past episodes of similar technological changes suggest that the future will brighten more than you might imagine.
In fact, the headlines these days are scary. Consider the following:
- May 12, 2025: “In Silicon Valley, AI isn't just replacing a few jobs. It's about swapping all jobs” – Guardian
- June 18, 2025: “AI will replace Amazon's job. CEO Andy Jassy confirms the worst fears of workers.” – Baron
- July 3, 2025: “Ford CEO is the latest executive warning that AI will wipe out half of its white-collar work” – Business Insider
- July 19, 2025: “AI will take on the job in the next 18 months. This is your survival guide.” – Market Watch
These headlines are not from vigilante bloggers taking shelter in the corners of the tin corners of the internet. These are from good news sources that readers have a large, reputable reputation. And they are causing artificial panic.
Consider Amazon headings. Amazon is an industry leader in automation, but employment at the company continues to grow unabated. Amazon currently employs more 1.5 million. That's up from 17,000 in 2007, and almost doubled the number of jobs in 2019. This employment growth occurred despite the fact that the company currently has Over 1 million robots At that workplace. The jobs these robots have replaced are jobs that involve primarily menial tasks and repetitive tasks, primarily to free the workforce to free the workforce for more valuable pursuits. CEO Andy Jassy recently announced that AI is likely to lead to future employment cuts for the company, but similar claims came in 2012 when Amazon acquired Robotics Company Kiva Systems. After this acquisition, employment has not waned.
These headlines sound like suspicious, like those in circulation during previous public conversations where technology threatened to take away all of their jobs. In the mid-1990s, the internet began to move from a playground for tech lovers to a central part of work and education. Work previously done by human processors was increasingly outsourced to data processors.
In 1995, Jeremy Rifkin published his book. The end of work, The dawn of the age of information technology claimed to result in a significant and structural decline in work. He suggested that two-thirds of all existing jobs could ultimately be eliminated by the machine. Work in manufacturing, agriculture, and office work has been particularly vulnerable to this type of technology-based outsourcing.
To be fair, machines did I will take over many of those jobs. However, as a result, there was no major, permanent structural unemployment. Instead, a new job appeared.
I'm writing an article about how AI can replace all jobs, so I asked ChatGpt to understand how to figure out how to identify jobs that didn't exist in 1990. It has pointed out the Labor Employment and Wage Statistics Bureau in a very useful way. Below are the new employment categories from that database and their current employment figures:
- Software and Web Developers, Programmers and Testers: 2,154,370 Employees
- Database and Network Administrators and Architects: 633,540 Employees
- Computer and Information Analysts: 677,230 Employees
In fact, since the adoption of the Internet began to accelerate in the late 1990s, the complete set of “computer and mathematics occupations” exploded. The current number of employment in the “computer occupation” category is 4,786,660.
These broad categories include a variety of fulfilling jobs and professions, including app developers, social media managers, cloud architects, cybersecurity analysts, influencers, and more. In past times, many of the individuals pursuing these opportunities would have been good candidates for once stable jobs in law, accounting, or manufacturing.
In 1897, Mark Twain heard rumors that he had died. He said “the report of my death was an exaggeration,” and wrote to the New York Journal to resolve the issue. Reports of AI employment “deaths” are not only exaggerated, but also lack information about the play's important second law practice. After destruction, creativity is born, and the internet story can give us clues about the future of work in this technological episode.
