Automation is hollowing out the labor market from both ends. Robots are replacing low-skill manufacturing jobs, while AI is automating high-skill knowledge work. For now, the most resilient jobs are skilled trades requiring high physical dexterity in unpredictable environments, like plumbing or electrical work.
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Bringing manufacturing back to the US won't mean a return of old assembly line jobs. The real opportunity is to leapfrog to automated factories that produce sophisticated, tech-infused products. This creates a new class of higher-skill, higher-pay "blue collar plus" jobs focused on building and maintaining these advanced manufacturing systems.
AI's core strength is hyper-sophisticated pattern recognition. If your daily tasks—from filing insurance claims to diagnosing patients—can be broken down into a data set of repeatable patterns, AI can learn to perform them faster and more accurately than a human.
If AI were perfect, it would simply replace tasks. Because it is imperfect and requires nuanced interaction, it creates demand for skilled professionals who can prompt, verify, and creatively apply it. This turns AI's limitations into a tool that requires and rewards human proficiency.
AI will primarily threaten purely cognitive jobs, but roles combining thought with physical dexterity—like master electricians or plumbers—will thrive. The AI-driven infrastructure boom is increasing demand and pushing their salaries above even those of some Silicon Valley engineers.
Instead of fearing job loss, focus on skills in industries with elastic demand. When AI makes workers 10x more productive in these fields (e.g., software), the market will demand 100x more output, increasing the need for skilled humans who can leverage AI.
AI is rapidly automating knowledge work, making white-collar jobs precarious. In contrast, physical trades requiring dexterity and on-site problem-solving (e.g., plumbing, painting) are much harder to automate. This will increase the value and demand for skilled blue-collar professionals.
Unlike past technological shifts where humans could learn new trades, AI is a "tractor for everything." It will automate a task and then move to automate the next available task faster than a human can reskill, making long-term job security increasingly precarious for cognitive labor.
Most AI applications are designed to make white-collar work more productive or redundant (e.g., data collation). However, the most pressing labor shortages in advanced economies like the U.S. are in blue-collar fields like welding and electrical work, where current AI has little impact and is not being focused.
Industries with fixed demand (accounting) will see job losses as AI handles the necessary workload. Sectors with expandable demand (software engineering) may absorb AI's productivity gains by creating vastly more output, thus preserving jobs for a longer period.
The immediate threat of AI is to entry-level white-collar jobs, not senior roles. Senior staff can now use AI to perform the "grunt work" of research and drafting previously assigned to apprentices. This automates the traditional career ladder, making it harder for new talent to enter professions like law, finance, and consulting.
