Reading the title, you might be thinking this post would be about the current jobs panic brought on due to the rise of AI. It’s something I’ve been thinking about, not in the context of the 21st century but in the context of the 19th century.
I wrote here about how farm automation lead to great benefits. But of course there was great losses as workers lost their traditional way of living That can be felt first hand in this 1965 interview with a 107-year-old Irish farmer reflecting on the changes he’s seen during his life. Of those changes, the biggest one he saw was the Industrial Revolution and the coming of machinery to farming. And he wasn’t the only one. There was a massive displacement of workers in the 19th century, as labourers went from being farmers to working in non-farm jobs (e.g., factory work).

Having grown up in the 20th and now 21st century, I’ve seen and continue to see the impact of technology on people’s work. Will AI have as much impact on 21st century workers as machinery had on 19th century farmers? Time will tell, but I doubt it.