✨ The end of work? Not yet—maybe not ever

Everyone needs to get a grip over fears of a white-collar job-pocalypse

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers in the USA and around the world:

Maybe this is an obvious point: If a) most "behind a screen" office tasks are fully automated by AI within the next 18 months, causing huge job market disruption, or if b) there's a growing sense that self-improving systems are gaining real autonomy and slipping beyond human oversight, then, yes, c) AI will be the central issue in the 2028 presidential election. (Well, assuming no war with China over Taiwan.)

My working political assumption, however, is that the digital die has been already cast. Even if we’re still short of “you’ll know it when you see it” human-level AI, America’s technological future will be inescapable in the 2028 presidential election. And the debate will range well beyond the electricity use and water consumption of data centers.

How could it not, when predictions of imminent white-collar carnage have become a dystopian genre unto themselves? And that would be just the beginning. First, AI absorbs the white-collar staples: drafting contracts, managing projects, designing campaigns, analyzing accounts. Soon after, a professional bloodbath. Accountants? Lawyers? Middle managers? Everywhere redundant, sidelined, and obsolete.

Then what? Learn to code? Maybe learn to weld. And when the machines can do that, too? Pop on your VR goggles and hope your meager basic-income check doesn’t get delayed by a government shutdown.

But let’s take a step back.