For more than a century, adulthood has been built around one economic assumption: you will have a job, and that job will pay you a salary. From that salary comes almost everything else. The mortgage. The car loan. The pension. The insurance policy. The tax return. The school fee. Eventually, retirement.

Governments are built around it too. Banks lend against it. Tax authorities collect through it. Companies structure benefits around it. Universities prepare young people to obtain it. Artificial intelligence may not destroy work. It may destroy this arrangement.

Much of the debate around AI has centred on one dramatic question: how many jobs will machines eliminate?

Perhaps that is the wrong question. Millions of people may continue working, earning and producing – but fewer may do so through the permanent, salaried employment around which the modern middle class was constructed. The evidence is still early and does not support predictions of an immediate employment apocalypse. The International Labour Organisation estimates that one in four workers globally is in an occupation with some exposure to generative AI, but says transformation of jobs is more likely than their wholesale disappearance.

Much of the debate around AI has centred on one dramatic question: how many jobs will machines eliminate?

Much of the debate around AI has centred on one dramatic question: how many jobs will machines eliminate?

That distinction matters. An architect who once needed five juniors to produce drawings, revisions and presentations may need two. One lawyer equipped with AI may perform research and drafting that once required several associates. One capable programmer may produce what previously required a small team.

A CFO will still exercise judgement and deal with boards, banks, regulators and investors. But reporting, forecasting, modelling, tax research and even the first draft of a board pack can increasingly be performed with machines. The profession survives. The........

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