Worker Displacement is Coming. Enter the Trades—and Even Early Retirement
A new report says that policies to protect current and future workers from AI displacement need to move faster.
We’ve seen the headlines: thousands of layoffs at big tech corporations, the erosion of white-collar entry-level work, and the infiltration of AI into previously safe professions like software development.
But what comes next? Will it be a dystopian hellscape where full-time jobs disappear, and we are all stitching together ad-hoc gigs to train AI models? Or will there be universal basic income, where we are freed up as human beings to self-actualize by reveling in art and music and nature?
The reality is probably somewhere in the middle, but one thing is true: despite all the chatter about doom and displacement, we may not actually be prepared for how to tangibly handle the fallout across the workforce. We know displacement is coming, but we can and should take action now to redirect people to different earnings opportunities, skillsets, or generally ways to bide their time and create value in their communities.
While AI companies and private equity firms are gleefully rolling out data centers to meet the demands of the AI companies’ outsized valuations, the people who are no longer employable (or who may need to adapt to work alongside or in parallel to automation) may be left behind.
A new report from the Brookings Institution calls out the speed at which everything is moving, and suggests some policy solutions to help workers—from recent college graduates to older workers in the trades—ready themselves for the impact.
I spoke with the author of the report, behavioral scientist Xavier Briggs, who suggested that we look to countries like Denmark that are directing workers towards apprenticeships in the trades. Trades training is not new of course, but Briggs says that these pathways must be inherent to education systems, and present themselves early to people in high school who might otherwise have thought that office jobs were inevitable or preferred.
“We need to make it possible for young people to have experiences in types of jobs outside of the office,” Briggs said, “And adolescence is a good window. Kids are old enough to be interested, but young enough to be open-minded and flexible.”
This happened with Indiana schools, where the state restructured the high school year and learning weeks to help people understand there’s a pathway into construction jobs, for example—not to dictate their careers, but to blend class-based and work-based learning. “[Individual] teachers and labor unions can’t do it alone,” he added. “We need to restructure the high school experience.”
While it’s feasible to direct teenagers into the trades professions early on, it is still unclear what mid-career white-collar or knowledge workers might do if their labor is no longer seen as valuable to the economy. Here, Briggs points to early retirement (still begging the question, in my mind, what people who previously sought identity through work might do with all this free time, and whether employers will fund this early retirement) or the state.
Perhaps one solution, the report calls out, are “human in the loop” roles to work in tandem with AI systems—to stop AI from making decisions that require a lot of context, nuance, and human judgment. I asked Briggs if AI companies might push back against such mechanisms that could be perceived as trying to slow down their growth.
“To win public trust, [the AI companies] need to respect society’s need to feel in control,” Briggs responded. He emphasizes that these companies do realize it will backfire for AI to unilaterally decide high stakes situations—like public benefits, parole, and child welfare— without human oversight.
Briggs referenced technologies that have operated alongside human labor since the dawn of manufacturing. Decades ago, automation made the manufacturing process of cars safer both for workers and consumers; today, AI may free up time for nurses and doctors to spend more time with patients, and teachers to spend more time with students.
The day before I spoke with Briggs, a $500 million bipartisan initiative launched to retrain workers displaced by the AI boom, championed by former New Hampshire Governor Gina Raimondo and including the participation of Anthropic, OpenAI, Amazon, Microsoft and Bank of America. The program “service year” opportunities for young people in healthcare or education and updating unemployment insurance programs to help laid-off workers start businesses with AI.
Briggs is positive about such initiatives, but believes that there remains critical work that humans will need to do, emphasizing the need for people who use “judgment and emotional intelligence with customers, clients, and citizens.”
Here’s what else we’re paying attention to this week…
The CFTC is investigating Donald Trump Jr.’s connection to prediction marketplace and betting platform Polymarket. Meanwhile, Meta is urging his lieutenants to develop partnerships with Polymarket and Kalshi, 18- to 34-year-olds, the employees added, and Meta is aiming to reach at least 100 million monthly active “predictors” for the app.
Anthropic’s new chief economist published this delightful thought about humanity in 2023: “...it is optimal to take a 1 in 3 chance of ending human existence in exchange for a 2/3 chance of dramatically raising living standards by a factor of 55.” Meanwhile, philosopher jobs at AI companies are in high demand these days.
TikTok’s AI is censoring creators who are making videos about the news.
Software startup Domo was once valued at $2.8 billion. Its market capitalization on Friday stood at $133 million. The story of what happened here.
Anthropic thinks they’re the only AI company who can save us. WIRED digs into CEO Dario Amodei’s blind spots, and the company’s “good guy” problem.
Former Meta policy lead Sarah Wynn-Williams is suing Meta for blocking her from promoting her memoir Careless People. The complaint cites a blatant violation of the first amendment, and also accuses the company of “coercive surveillance.”.
After months of tense negotiations, the U.S. government is bringing Anthropic’s model Mythos back online.
A bill from California Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal threatens fines of up to $1 million per child for platforms found liable for harming kids through negligent product design. Meta is fighting for exemptions.
A writer for The Atlantic wore Palantir’s workman coat for a week. Apparently, the inside of the coat reads: Ask yourself constantly, Am I winning? If the answer is yes, nothing else matters. Chaos is tolerable; pain is tolerable. The only thing that matters is to win.
Inside cyberscam compounds across Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia, women are beaten and raped, forced to work 18-hour days chatting with 100 online scam victims at a time. Known as “pig butchering,” trafficked workers—who initially thought they’d have jobs as social media managers—are forcibly trained to convince online users to invest their money in a fund that eventually reveals itself to be fraudulent.