Rather than destroying jobs, AI's productivity gains will lead to the creation of more abstract, seemingly "fake" roles. For example, individuals now earn a salary directly from platforms like X simply by posting AI-generated content, a trend that is expected to grow as the creator economy evolves.

The fear of AI-driven mass unemployment is misplaced because most white-collar jobs are already "fake"—not essential for survival. As automation handles existing tasks, our unquenchable desire to consume will lead us to invent entirely new jobs and services to fill our time, just as we always have.

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.

Like the internet and mobile, AI will automate many jobs. However, this automation historically unlocks new types of work that don't exist yet. While there's short-term frictional pain, the long-term trend repeated over 200 years is job creation and increased prosperity.

Economists see no AI job loss in data because, like cheaper coal in the 1860s, cheaper intelligence via AI doesn't shrink demand. Instead, it explodes it, creating new roles and applications that offset initial displacement.

The fear that AI will replace all jobs ignores history. Technology has consistently eliminated drudgery (e.g., manual farming, factory work) while creating new, unpredictable industries that cater to newly created human wants. AI will accelerate this process, allowing people to focus on more creative and interpersonal pursuits.

The panic-inducing Citrini paper, which caused a market sell-off, assumes a static economy where AI only destroys jobs. It completely ignores historical precedents where new efficiencies unlock unforeseen demand and create entirely new industries, a concept similar to the Jevons paradox.

Countering AI doomerism, Ben Horowitz argues that human desire is infinite. Once AI makes basic goods abundant, people will develop new 'needs'—from complex services to luxury experiences like chef-prepared meals—which will in turn generate entirely new industries and jobs unimaginable today.

The fear of AI-driven mass unemployment is a classic economic fallacy. Like past technologies, AI is a tool that raises the marginal productivity of individual workers. More productive workers don't work less; they take on more ambitious projects and create new kinds of jobs, increasing the overall demand for labor.