People in intellectual jobs have often been thought of as doing something inherently more complex than manual workers in, for instance, construction or farming.
Whether or not that is true, the surprise twist is that their “complex” work will be the first to be replaced. Computers have cracked intellectual work sooner than they have cracked manual work. It’s still too complex for a robot to replace a fruit-picker completely, but we’ll soon see AI lawyers.
So we’re going to see a mass inversion. Everyone today sitting prettily doing their intellectual jobs will find their wages crushed or jobs redundant as AI replaces them. Meanwhile, everyone doing the jobs robotics can’t yet replace will be best placed to continue doing them.
High flying executives will find they are suitable only for shelf-stacking, while those who’ve worked in retail for years will be or become their bosses.
Soon enough, AI will help us advance the field of robotics sufficiently for manual labour also to be replaced. Who knows what happens then.
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