A viral new blog post, "Something Big is Happening", has attracted 80m views arguing that A.I. has automated coders out of the technical aspect of their job and that nearly all jobs are next. What, however, do the data show?
THE EMPLOYMENT PICTURE
• Since ChatGPT launched in late 2022, the U.S. has *added* ~3 million white-collar jobs while blue-collar employment has stayed flat.
• America has 7% more software developers, 10% more radiologists and 21% more paralegals since ChatGPT's launch (these are roles regularly cast as A.I.'s earliest victims).
• Real wages in professional and business services are up ~5%; office and admin workers' real wages are up 9%.
THE HISTORICAL PATTERN
• In 1982, Nobel laureate Wassily Leontief warned computers would displace mental labor en masse. What happened? White-collar employment more than doubled and pay rose ~33% in real terms.
• Technology rarely replaces entire jobs. Instead, it automates specific tasks within them. The historical result is upgrading, not replacement.
• MIT research found roughly half of U.S. employment growth from 1980–2007 came from brand-new job titles created by technological change.
WHERE THE VULNERABILITIES ARE
• Entry-level roles are most exposed... they involve narrower "task bundles" with fewer edge cases requiring human discretion.
• Routine back-office work is actually shrinking (see chart from The Economist at the top of this post): insurance-claims clerks down 13%, secretaries and admin assistants down 20%.
• But roles combining technical expertise with oversight and coordination are booming, e.g., project managers and infosec experts are up ~30%.
THE AI REALITY CHECK
• Anthropic's own data show only ~4% of occupations use A.I. across 75%+ of their tasks. Hardly any roles can be fully automated.
• Today's A.I. has "jagged intelligence": impressive on many tasks but uneven. Being good at 95% of a task isn't enough when the remaining 5% involves critical edge cases.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
1. Don't panic out of your technical career. Roles combining technical depth with judgment and coordination are growing, not shrinking.
2. Become the person who works *with* A.I. (the future is increasing augmentation).
3. Invest in the hard-to-automate skills: judgment, stakeholder communication and messy real-world domain expertise.
4. Stay curious. The durable advantage isn't mastering any single tool, it's getting comfortable with the pace of change itself.
Many of the data above come from an article in The Economist. I've also got for you Matt Shumer's viral 'Something Big is Happening' post.
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