Technological advancement creates a paradox: as machines automate more tasks, the economic value of uniquely human and social interaction increases. This structural shift helps explain why recent job growth is so concentrated in sectors like health, education, and hospitality.

As technology made marketing tasks more efficient (e.g., Google Ads), it democratized access, causing a 5x increase in marketing jobs since the 1970s. Box's CEO argues AI will have a similar effect on all knowledge work by lowering costs, which will dramatically increase overall demand for that work.

Despite technologies like Zillow seemingly making them obsolete, real estate brokers have remained resilient due to market inertia and regulatory capture. This serves as a powerful counter-example to predictions of rapid, friction-less AI-driven job displacement in other white-collar professions.

Fears of mass unemployment from AI overlook a key economic principle: human desire is not fixed. As technology makes existing goods and services cheaper, humans invent new things to want. The Industrial Revolution didn't end work; it just created new kinds of jobs to satisfy new desires.

Brendan Foodie predicts that as AI automates digital roles, the displaced workforce will shift to physical world jobs (from robotics data creation to therapy). He argues this is because physical automation progresses much slower than digital automation, which benefits from rapid, self-reinforcing feedback loops.

AI models lack access to the rich, contextual signals from physical, real-world interactions. Humans will remain essential because their job is to participate in this world, gather unique context from experiences like customer conversations, and feed it into AI systems, which cannot glean it on their own.

Despite technology like Zillow making their function obsolete for 20 years, real estate brokers persist due to market inertia and regulatory capture. This serves as a powerful argument that AI's displacement of white-collar jobs will be far more gradual than predicted, allowing society time to adjust.

Economist Tyler Cowen predicts that as AI makes information ubiquitous and cover letters perfect, value will shift to non-public knowledge, or "secrets." Confidential insights on how networks operate and decisions are made, shared through human relationships, will become critical. A trusted human who can vouch for you will be more important than ever.

Even if AI can perfectly replicate all goods and services, human desire for authenticity, connection, and imperfection will create a premium for human-provided labor. This suggests new economies will emerge based not on efficiency, but on providing what is uniquely and quirkily human.