It’s a foregone conclusion that AI is going to replace some jobs in the coming years. I can’t say whether it’s be a small or large number, and no one knows for sure, but it’s clear that at least some jobs will be replaced by AI.

This sounds like a bad thing, but is it? Maybe so, but maybe not.

Back in 1930, we had 235,000 people that were switchboard operators in the United States, but technology caused almost all of them to lose their jobs in a short period of time. Should laws have been put in place to prevent automatic switching technology in order to save those jobs?

We’ve seen the same thing with inventions across history, from the printing press, to the car, to the computer, to the internet. Each advancement wiped out a batch of jobs, but then also created new ones. AI is likely to be the same.

With AI, we’re likely going to see a big reduction in jobs like copywriting, but we’re already seeing new jobs for “prompt engineers” (people that can write great inputs for AI), including Netflix famously offering a salary of $900,000 to the right person.

I don’t know how all of this will shake out, and I hate that some people will be losing their jobs because of this in the coming years, but in the future with the benefit of hindsight I suspect it’ll be a net positive for all of us.