The argument is that “that’s what always happened in the past”.

Which is true, but it’s true as long as it’s not true.

The classic example of how drastically this kind of thinking can fail is Malthusian theory, that populations would collapse because food growth was linear while population growth was exponential. This was true for all of history until Malthus actually made this observation.

At a mechanistic level, the “we have always found other jobs” argument misses that the reason we’ve always found other jobs is because humans have always had an intelligence advantage over automation. Even something as mechanical as human inputs in an assembly line was eventually dependent on the human ability to make tiny, often imperceptibly, adjustments that a robot couldn’t.

But if something approximating AGI does work out, human labor has absolutely no advantage over automation so it’s not clear why the past “automation has created more human jobs” logic should continue.

It's not going to happen, just as it didn't happen for skilled industrial workers whose jobs got outsourced to China. The government will pay just enough in welfare to keep the situation manageable. Then they'll demonize you in the culture, as a Luddite, etc.

> However, I never read what those careers are or who is going to pay for retraining.

There aren't any careers and if there were, you would have to pay. Corporations certainly won't except under extremely rare situations where they have to to compete.

I think the idea of being an employee is fundamentally changing. Not saying its good or bad but it's shifting to a more entrepreneurial phase where people have to step out of their 9 to 5s and find ways to deliver value that others want to pay for.

We saw this pre-ai with uber and door dash. I think as AI automation dies down and most companies are competing at a near optimal level with the new tools we'll need humans again in more traditional roles to build the next generation of innovations. And then the whole cycle will repeat.

The same is true of the industries that software disrupted.

The second part seems obvious to me: the ones who are getting retrained. If it's some kind of formal education, depending where you are, maybe the state at least for part of it.

Education in what, though? No idea. And if there was one answer, and it's true that there will be fewer software developers, you'd likely be competing with many people for few jobs.

> I never read what those careers are

Exactly. I have yet to read a single logically sound argument that even gives a hint of what those professions/jobs might be (remember, they have to be plentiful enough to employ large numbers of people, so "I quit my corporate job and making more as a TikTok influencer" doesn't count). Remember that a new profession has to open up new hitherto unknown revenue streams otherwise there are no companies who will pay you.

The most future-proof “career” right now is having money. At least multiple million dollars. That’s a skill that is very much in demand.

At least in the US, the only major non-AI growth field seems to be healthcare to deal with the swell of baby boomers living longer than people have before.

But if we're waiting to be paid to retrain there, I wouldn't hold our collective breath.

Yeah, that's just a copium answer from people who simply want to hand wave away the issue instead of admitting they have no good answers.

Like a politician who's asked about this in a town hall, but thinks that "our plan is to do absolutely nothing" doesn't sound very appealing.

Also, it's not necessarily true that there will be other great careers available. This seems to just be an assumption people are making.

Of course, there are jobs that will still require human labour for some time yet, but in reality a lot jobs that require physical human labour are now done in other parts of the world where labour is cheaper.

Those which cannot be exported like plumbing or waitressing only have limited demand. You can't take 50% of the current white-collar workforce and dump them in these careers and expect them to easily find work or receive a decent wage. The demand simply does not exist.

Additionally, at the same time as white-collar jobs are being lost an increasing number of "low-skill" manual labour jobs are also being automated. Self-checkout machines mean it's harder to get work in retail, robotaxis and drone delivery will make it harder harder to find work in delivery and logistics, robots in warehouses will make it harder to find warehouse jobs.

It seems to me there is an implicate assumption that AI will either create a bunch of new well-paid jobs that employers need humans for (which means AI cannot do them) and jobs which cannot be exported abroad for cheaper. What well-paid jobs would even fit the category of being immune to AI and immune to outsourcing? Are we all going to be really well paid cleaners or something? It makes no sense.

A lot of the advice we're seeing today about retraining in construction worker or plumber seems to assume that there's an unlimited demand for this labour which there simply is not. And even if hypothetically there was about to be a huge increase in demand for construction workers, it would take years to even have the machinery, supply chain and infrastructure in place to support the millions of people entering construction.

The most likely scenario is that people will lose their jobs and will be stuck in an endless race to the bottom fighting for the limited number of jobs that are left in the domestic economy while everything else is either outsourced or done by robots and AI.

The better advice is to start preparing for this reality. Do not assume the government will or can protect you. When wealth concentrates corruption because almost inevitable and politicians have families to look after too.

Please take this seriously. Even if I'm wrong it's better to prepare for the worse rather than to assume everything will be find and you'll be able to retrain into a new well-paid career.

AI cannot create art by itself.

This is the story that's been written since the Luddite revolts, as far as I know. The successors in that case were the capitalists who spent a significant amount of time and money convincing the constabulary and political figures to side with them. People were shot and jailed in the worst cases. The best case, workers were left without work or sent off to work-houses where they became indentured servants to the state.

The last work-house closed in the 1930s.

That all started not because people were afraid jobs were going to be replaced by the new loom. People had been using looms for centuries. They were protesting working conditions: low wages, lack of social protections when people were let go, child labor, work houses, etc. There were no labor laws at the time to protect workers... but there were these valuable new machines that the capital owners valued greatly. The machines were destroyed as leverage: a threat.

Since the capitalists ultimately "won" that conflict it has been written, by technocrats, that technological progress is virtuous and that while workers will initially be displaced the benefit to society will be enough such that those displaced will find productive work else where.

But I think even capitalist economists such as Keynes found the idea a bit preposterous. He wrote about how the gains in productivity from technological advances aren't being distributed back to workers: we're not working less, we're working more than ever. While it isn't about displacement of workers, it is displacement of value and that tends to go hand in hand.

I think asking, "Where do I go?" is a valid question. One that workers have been trying to ask since the Luddites at least. Unfortunately I think it's one that gets brushed under the rug. There doesn't seem to be much political will to provide systems that would make losing a job a non-issue and work optional.

That would give us the most leverage. If I didn't have to work in order to live I could leave a job or get displaced by the latest technological advancement. But I could retrain into anything I wanted and rejoin the work force when I was good and ready. I wouldn't have to risk losing my house, skipping meals, live without insurance, etc.