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A job is not a task
More than tasks
Think about the last week at work: conversations with clients, conversations with colleagues, and efforts to convince people that the organization needs to move in a certain direction. AI can handle a task, but it cannot move an organization forward, and that part of a job keeps people needed.
The blue-collar question
Bill Gates has written that AI will eventually come for blue-collar jobs as well, within the decade. The opposing view holds that scenarios where everybody ends up out of a job are unlikely to happen.
New jobs appear
People also have a strong reason to hold on to work: after health and family, the job is the most important thing in most lives. And people are creative, so they come up with new jobs. About 200 million influencers now make some kind of money from it, a job that did not exist 10 or 15 years ago.
Has automation wiped out jobs before?
Bank tellers are a well-known case. Economist James Bessen found that the number of US bank tellers kept rising for decades after ATMs spread. ATMs cut the cost of running a branch, so banks opened more of them, and tellers shifted toward sales and customer service. The job title survived while its tasks changed.
How did influencing become a paid job?
It grew out of platforms that began sharing money with the people who drew audiences. YouTube launched its Partner Program in 2007, paying creators a share of the advertising shown next to their videos. Later platforms added sponsorship marketplaces, subscriptions, and creator funds. Each of these gave people a way to earn from an audience without an employer.
Why is coordinating people so central to work?
Economist Ronald Coase asked in 1937 why firms exist at all, when markets could price every exchange. His answer was that finding partners, negotiating, and enforcing agreements all cost time and money. A firm lets people coordinate through managers and shared goals instead. Much of what employees do in a week is that internal coordination.
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