The essay rejects fears of mass unemployment from AI, noting that past technological revolutions replaced agricultural labor yet produced more and higher-paying jobs through greater productivity.

It identifies two vulnerable categories—bureaucratic control functions that generate reports and metrics, and David Graeber’s “bullshit jobs” that add no value—as the first to be displaced because AI can supply management data instantly and cheaply while curbing wasteful spending.

The predicted outcome is leaner, more efficient firms, lower consumer prices, faster growth (Musk has suggested a doubling), and redeployment of displaced workers into value-creating roles as entrepreneurs gain freer access to resources.

Fears mount that AI will replace humans in all kinds of work. As with any technological revolution, people in general think the technology will cause job losses rather than the other way around. Many economists, who have studied the role and impact of technological revolutions, disagree. After all, the vast majority of the population in all Western countries used to be employed in agriculture and were, ultimately, replaced by tractors and other novel technology. But this did not cause mass unemployment. In fact, the population today is much greater than back then and unemployment is quite low, so it should be obvious that we have more jobs than was the case in agrarian times. And they earn higher salaries too.

Technological revolutions—albeit at the time considered unique—have always had the same result: increased productivity, greater prosperity, and more and higher-paying jobs. The high standard of living we currently enjoy is due to these revolutions. What is to say the same will not be the case this time around?

But, assume the doomsayers are correct, that AI will cause massive job losses. Which jobs should we expect will disappear? Not the ones that create the most value. These jobs should be the last to go. The first to go are the ones that can........

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