AI isn’t coming for everyone’s job
- 4 hours ago
- 1 min read
The demand for the human touch is not limited to music. It is valuable across the economy, in a wide variety of goods and services and the jobs that create them.
The demand for the human touch is one reason there are still millions of waiters despite the potential to automate them with QR codes and ordering tablets. There are more than 10 million people employed in sales roles today despite the ability to buy and sell just about anything online, the rise of self-checkout, retail kiosks, and many other automating technologies.
This demand for the human touch appears to grow with income. The level of restaurant service and the number of jobs needed to provide it tends to go up with the size of the bill. Fine dining likely involves not only a waiter but someone who advises on wines, someone to keep the table clean as you dine, someone to bring out the cheese cart. In economics terms, the human touch is a normal good, something that a richer society demands more of.
Our willingness to pay for the human touch does not mean that AI will not be disruptive to the labor market. There are still many jobs that AI will be able to do and where consumers won’t mind and may even value the absence of humans.
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