Much of the public discussion about artificial intelligence begins with a fear: What happens when the machines take our jobs?
The concern is understandable. Since the industrial revolution, major technological advances have created anxiety about the future of work. Computers and mechanization reduced the need for farm labor, hand labor in manufacturing, and countless clerical tasks. Today, AI appears poised to automate activities that once seemed uniquely human.
Yet history suggests that worries are misplaced.
At a recent American Enterprise Institute event marking the 70th anniversary of artificial intelligence, experts in the telecommunications, utilities, transportation, and finance sectors described how businesses are actually deploying AI. Their message was remarkably consistent: AI is proving far more useful as a complement to workers than as a replacement for them.
That should not surprise us.
Businesses do not adopt technologies to eliminate jobs. Adoption is a competitive necessity for improving customer service, increasing productivity, reducing costs, and creating new sources of revenue. That changes the kinds of jobs people perform, with some, like telephone operators, fading into history. Almost by definition, innovations allow workers to accomplish more than they could before.
Consider the technologies that transformed the American economy during the past century. Railroads expanded markets. Telephones and then the internet accelerated and expanded communications. Electricity revolutionized production. Bar-code scanners transformed retailing. Each innovation altered the nature of work. But their most important contribution was making people more productive.
Artificial intelligence appears to be following a similar path.
Across industries, companies are using AI to handle routine tasks while enabling employees to focus on higher-value activities. Telecommunications companies are deploying AI to monitor networks, identify cybersecurity threats, and improve customer service. Utilities are using AI to inspect infrastructure, predict equipment failures, and improve safety. Transportation firms employ AI to identify maintenance needs before breakdowns occur and to reduce accidents caused by human error.
In finance, AI is increasingly becoming basic infrastructure. AI is competing with Bloomberg terminals, which once transformed how financial professionals gathered and analyzed information. AI helps workers process enormous quantities of data, identify patterns, and evaluate alternatives more quickly than ever before.
Perhaps the most revealing examples involve tasks that many people assumed would remain the exclusive domain of human expertise. JPMorgan’s AI-powered systems now review contracts and legal documents that previously required thousands of hours of professional labor. Yet the goal is not to eliminate lawyers, but to free them from repetitive review work so they can focus on judgment, negotiation, and client service.
The same pattern appears in utilities. Octopus Energy’s AI system handles customer emails with satisfaction ratings exceeding those of humans. Duke Energy partnered with Microsoft and Accenture to develop an AI-powered platform that integrates satellite and ground sensor data for real-time natural gas leak detection and response.
This work reveals something fundamental about how technological progress unfolds.
New technologies often automate tasks before they automate jobs. Most occupations consist of many different activities, some routine and others requiring judgment, creativity, persuasion, empathy, or accountability. AI excels at some of these activities and struggles with others. As a result, many workers are finding that AI functions less like a substitute and more like a highly capable assistant.
The greater challenge may not be technological at all. It may be organizational.
Employees are rapidly experimenting with AI tools. Businesses are moving more cautiously. Leaders must determine how to manage risks, train employees, and use AI to improve or reinvent operations. The organizations that succeed will be those that combine human capabilities and machine capabilities most effectively.
None of this means job displacement will not occur. It will. Every major technological transformation creates dislocation. Some occupations will shrink. Others will emerge. People will adapt, as they always have.
But if the experience of businesses adopting AI today is any indication, the more immediate story is not one of replacement. It is one of amplification.
The most important economic effect of artificial intelligence may not be that machines become more capable. It may be that people become more capable when they work alongside AI.
Mark Jamison is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at AEI.
Reprinted with Permission from AEI.org – By Mark Jamison
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.