We’re Planning for the Wrong AI Job Disruption

If artificial intelligence takes over some of your tasks, that doesn’t render you unemployable

By Stephen Lewarne. He is a professor of economics and finance at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. Excerpts:

"Task automation typically reorganizes work well before it destroys jobs, if it does the latter at all."

"Many politicians and commentators assume that if AI can perform some of a job’s tasks, the role will disappear."

"the distinction between task repricing—when technology can take over all or part of a task—and job destruction isn’t semantic, it is economic. When technology lowers the cost of performing specific tasks by lifting some of the load, firms reorganize production. Workers specialize differently. Demand expands in ways that task-based rankings don’t capture."

"software has automated large portions of bookkeeping and tax preparation without eliminating accountants, who have moved up the value chain toward advisory, forensic and judgment-intensive work."

"A job that scores as 40% “exposed” to AI in these rankings doesn’t have a 40% chance of vanishing. It is more likely to be reorganized."

"As technology accelerates tasks and reduces costs, companies also create roles that task-based rankings like those from Goldman Sachs and the OECD cannot see. Law firms increasingly rely on litigation-support managers and AI-review specialists who oversee automated document analysis rather than review the papers manually."

"Large-scale retraining programs have a mixed record, even when displacement is real. When displacement is overstated, such programs risk doing harm. They pull workers out of productive roles, subsidize credentials with little demonstrated labor-market value"