Kamal Ghorui
AI to do most white-collar jobs soon? Improbable. But, say, it does. Then even the rich won’t be rich
A small financial research company in New York wrote a very long blog post that scared many investors in the US. The post was called “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis.” It imagined a future where AI programs take over lots of office jobs. Because of that, many people lose their jobs. When people don’t have jobs, they can’t pay back loans. The stock market crashes in 2027, losing more than half its value. By 2028, more than 10% of people in the US are unemployed, compared to about 4% today.
The company said this was just a possible story about the future, not a prediction. But with all the recent news about what AI can do, it doesn’t seem impossible.
In just one month, people have said AI can check legal papers, create a fake but realistic fight scene between movie stars, and even update very old computer systems. AI can also write, translate languages, make art, study data, and even help figure out what illness someone might have. With abilities like these, it’s easy to imagine a world where many office jobs disappear very quickly.
But is that likely to happen? Maybe not. AI isn’t quite that powerful yet. AI companies often say their tools can do amazing things because they want investors to keep giving them money. But real life is complicated. For example, changing a few lines of computer code is easier than fixing and updating an entire system. AI tools today are a bit like very smart college graduates — they know a lot, but they still need experience and supervision. In fact, a recent study found that when AI programs work on their own without supervision, they often make mistakes or fail.
There’s also a bigger question: would it even be good if AI replaced most office jobs? In the US, only about 10% of people earn more than $250,000 a year, but they spend about half of all consumer money. Most of these high earners have office jobs. If they suddenly lose their jobs, people would stop spending money. Businesses would make less profit. The stock market could crash. Even factory workers could suffer if companies produce less because people aren’t buying things.
There’s another problem too. Right now, businesses are run by thousands of smart people across many companies. But if AI takes over, decision-making could end up controlled by just a few big tech companies. That would give a lot of power to a small number of firms — and that could be risky.
So while an “AI takeover” makes for a dramatic story, it may not be as simple — or as likely — as it sounds.
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