There are two main camps when it comes to predicting how AI will affect jobs.
- The first group says AI will soon be better at everything, and that “most or all of the jobs are going away”. It’s a common argument and given how fast AI is improving it’s easy to see why so many believe it.
- The second group says it’ll be the opposite. They reference concepts like Jevon’s Paradox, basically saying AI will let so many more people make things that there will be an explosion of new stuff in the world, from art to tech to entertainment, and more people will be needed to make and support those things.
This positive argument has multiple points:
- AI will remove boring parts of important jobs letting high-skill people focus more on the parts that matter
- There’s tons of friction to doing many high-value things, like not being able to find funding, not being able to do all the components of a complex task, etc.
- AI will be able to find the parts you need help with and enable you to focus on the more human and creative part of the work
- Once this happens, there will be vastly more people actually making things, which will then result in more need to support the stuff as well
I think both are true, and I want to offer a Unified Theory that shows why and how both can be at the same time. And most importantly, what we can do about it.
- The problem with prediction #1 is that it doesn’t account for all the new jobs that will be created.
- The problem with prediction #2 is the built-in assumption that it’ll be easy for people who lose their jobs to pivot to the new ones.
I think that’s incorrect, and I think the theory that unifies both of these is:
- Lots of jobs will be lost due to AI
- Lots of jobs will be created due to AI
- The standard for employability after this happens will be much higher than it was before, so billions of people will not be employable without doing significant work on themselves.
In other words, I think what’s going to happen is a powerful bifurcation, meaning “a splitting in two”. Specifically, the splitting of human workers into Employable and the Unemployable, or The Thriving and the Struggling.
It’s not the “Kind of Doing Ok” and the “Doing a Bit Worse”. I think it’s a lot more extreme than that, which is why I’m so hyped about spreading this frame to others.
People who have the characteristics and attributes that make them employable in this new world will have extraordinary upside because of how much technology will magnify them.
And I fear those who don’t have those things will struggle to make any money at all.
Thinking of analogies, it’s like escape velocity for a rocket, or fuel and a spark for a combustion engine. It’s a 0 until it’s a 1, and the 1 is an entirely different world. It’s gross to think about, but I believe it’s already starting.
While I think there will be massive downward pressure on all of us from this change, if I thought there were nothing we can do about it I wouldn’t be writing this.
This is not about your past, or your upbringing, or any of that. What determines which group you’re in comes down to the way you perceive the world and how you choose to conduct yourself within it.
That’s the positivity in this. It’s not some pre-existing “special” group of people who are going to automatically enter (or remain in) the Thriving class. Nor are there groups that are permanently stuck in the Unemployable group.
And just so you don’t think I’m blabbing theoretical from some mountain hut, I’ve literally been both groups. Neither of my parents went to college, and I was never told I should go either. I ended up going but left to take a job without getting a degree. I joined the military out of high school to escape my life, and have gone to sleep hungry multiple times because I couldn’t manage money (I’d set the alarm for when the Army cafeteria opened the next day). I used check cashers and pawn shops for cash, which of course became a snowball. I spent far too long as what we like to call in the Army, a “soup sandwich”, meaning, an absolute mess (you try it). I spent all my 20’s and far too much of my 30’s letting life happen to me.
That was long before AI, but I mention this because I, in that form, would have zero chance of Thriving above the waterline in this new world that’s coming. I would have blamed my circumstances, the changing world, made a list of reasons I couldn’t get ahead, and been 100% Unemployable.
So when I tell you that mental frames and behaviors are the whole game, I’ve not only studied countless people who struggled through this exact same thing, and seen the movie play out countless times in the people around me: I’ve literally lived it myself as the experiment.
Nobody can tell you exactly what attributes and behaviors will help you the most. Everyone is guessing.
But after reading somewhere north of 1,200 books, and studying and writing about this exact thing for over 20 years, this is the best list I can come up with for the mindsets and behaviors that will help someone Thrive vs. Struggle post-AI.
| The Thriving (Employable) | The Struggling (Unemployable) |
|---|---|
| Curious | Apathetic |
| Constantly self-improving | Stopped learning/growing a long time ago |
| Expert with AI | Hates AI and/or avoids it as much as possible |
| Borderline foolishly optimistic | Cynical and skeptical |
| Thinks everything is mostly earned | Believe they deserve things because degree/family/upbringing |
| Voracious reader | Stopped reading when it was no longer mandatory |
| Knows who they are and what they want from life | All their goals came from other people |
| Thinks people are basically good | Thinks people are mostly bad |
| Free time is spent on reading and relationships | Free time is spent with short video, video games, and NETFLIX |
| Focused on problems bigger than oneself | Only works on what benefits them directly |
| Sees AI and tech as natural change | Sees AI as a choice we should not have made |
| Compares to an ideal version of self | Compares to others |
| Focus on what they control | Stress about things they can’t change |
| They make life happen | Life happens to them |
| Open to new experiences | Resistant to change |
| Spends most time creating or nurturing | Spends most time consuming |
- Some people are arguing all the (knowledge) jobs are going away due to AI. There’s truth to that, but it doesn’t take into account how many net-new jobs will be generated from AI as well.
- Others are arguing “Hey, don’t worry about it! There will be plenty of new jobs!” And what they’re not getting is that those new jobs will require a new way of thinking about one’s career and work, and many people who thrived in the pre-AI world won’t be employable without making significant changes.
- I think it’s useful to imagine a (yuk) new AI Thrivability/Employability waterline, and to be thinking about what it takes to get and stay above it.
- The whole thing is kind of gross, but it’s just the reality we’ll have to adjust to given inevitable technology advancement, and how it affects the people living when those major changes happen.
- I think the main thing(s) that determine whether one is in the top (Thriving) part of coming K-Shaped economy, or the bottom (Unemployable) is a set of mental frames and behaviors rather than background, pedigree, or credentials.
- The list I’ve provided here isn’t perfect, but I think it’s decent and useful, and I seriously hope it helps you.
