How AI Impacts the Evolution of Work

AI is paradoxical: a creative ally and job-eating foe. We need a new AI growth mindset to survive, and thrive.

       Amid AI’s rise
       Human productivity thrives
       While job prospects vanish, shift, and drift.

                                   - Mark Palmer, with Perplexity

To humans, AI is a paradoxical force: a powerful productivity ally and job-destroying foe. That’s the subject of the second StosselTV episode I helped former ABC News 20/20 reporter John Stossel create, Jobs vs. Machines: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence. It has hundreds of thousands of views and 1,500+ comments.

Stossel takes a balanced stance on AI. Like our last piece on driverless vehicles, he points out that AI augments and elevates our capabilities. It makes humans 44% faster and 20% better at critical thinking tasks. AI is creating exciting tech-augmented education, healthcare, technology, and hospitality jobs. At the same time, AI is putting some jobs at risk. Jobs like truck driving, manufacturing, and creative work will shift, drift, or vanish.

The nature of work has been evolving for hundreds of years — tractors, ATMs, and forklifts replaced farmers, bank tellers, and dock workers. It seems absurd now, but textile workers railed against looms in the 1800s. Painters felt photography wasn’t “real art.” Dock workers protested the use of conveyor belts and cargo elevators:

The New York Times

Yet, as Stossel says, history should reassure us. For hundreds of years, technology has eliminated jobs and created new ones. Yet unemployment remains low, and wage averages go up. Human workers evolve.

But AI is different than looms, tractors, and ATMs. It augments our brain, not our brawn. To survive and thrive in the AI age, we need to think different. That’s why I teach the AI mindset in a two-session workshop for free. (100% of the $49 tuition is donated to charity). Everyone needs a new AI growth mindset.

To learn more about the impact of AI on the future of work, watch Jobs vs. Machines: The Rise of Artificial Intelligence below from John Stossel. Technical advice from me :)

And join me for the next Generative AI Growth Mindset workshop cohort.

And check out these other Substacks I love:

AI Supremacy

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Michael Spencer

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Marcus on AI

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Gary Marcus

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Last Week in AI

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Polymathic Being

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Michael Woudenberg

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The Algorithmic Bridge

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Alberto Romero

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The Muse

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Birgitte Rasine

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The Intrinsic Perspective

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Erik Hoel

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The Pragmatic Engineer

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Gergely Orosz

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Hugh Kennedy

from

PJA