Looking at “AI will take all the jobs” from an economic angle, it is likely that we will wind up with a world that values irreplaceable human products more highly. Think of Picasso, Ella Fitzgerald (and, OK, maybe Taylor Swift) as one-of-a-kind artistic geniuses. Think of your therapist or pastor or the hospice worker who is walking through a time of loss with you and your family as individuals who can not be replaced by a process or any other person. The “product” is /that person/. Sure, we can make computer-recreations of ABBA on stage, but people value live performers. Sure, you can ask AI to create another Mona Lisa, but the original will remain in the Louvre and draw crowds.

Mechanization moved us from a world where 40% of the US population worked on farms to a miniscule amount today. We have more food, it’s cheaper, and people can spend their time doing other things. Automation has reduced the number of people working manufacturing, but we have more things at lower cost. Mechanization and automation have moved us to a service economy. Just as today we don’t have very many blacksmiths shoeing horses or people mindlessly putting the same screw in on an assembly line year after year, many jobs will change or be eliminated as a result of AI. AI will allow us to focus on other things, and those things are likely to allow humans to do more of the things that only humans can do.

Last night I went to a live performance (https://www.stagealive.org/) to hear Rob Verdi play the saxophone (actually 5 of them). His performance was wonderful, there was the chemistry with the audience, shared anxiety because he had nearly missed his flight and arrived only an hour before the performance. He taught us the history of the instrument and the pieces he played. The highlight of the entire evening for me came when he taught the high school kids who performed with him part of the blues scale and completely unexpectedly (to them) had 4 of them solo, for the first time ever, before a live audience. That was brilliant. In 10 minutes he taught the kids the heart of Jazz (improvisation), took them out of their comfort zone, put them before a live audience and showed them that they could succeed. This is all irreplaceaby human. They will remember that their whole life. The high school orchestra then muddled badly through Sinatra/Count Basie’s “Fly me to the moon” backing Verdi in the closing number, but it was OK, because they were learning (through failure in this case) and we (the audience) were with them … and it inspired me to crank up the original on the way home to hear “The Voice” swing a tune as no other ever could and Basie give his humorously simple signature, playing 2 or 3 notes on the piano contrasting his orchestra’s full-on sound.

Sure, AI may take over the creation of tedious power points and marketing materials that noone wants anyhow, but it will leave space for humans do to the things that only humans can do.

The economics article that got me thinking about this is here: aleximas.substack.com/p/what-wi…