"Barr put forward a bit of a doomsday scenario where the aggressive exponential growth of AI leads to a labor market full of people that are, he said, "essentially unemployable." "Agentic AI" systems, which are capable of achieving general goals with minimal human supervision, would replace a large swatch of professional and service roles. Autonomous vehicles will replace transportation jobs, just as unsupervised robotics would deplete the manufacturing industry's need for human workers."
"There will be much less demand for labor despite the "vastly productive economy," Barr argued, sparking a "jobless boom" that would force jobseekers to reevaluate their approach to the new Ai-dominated economy. "Society would have to rethink the social safety net to ensure that the gains from unprecedented economic growth are shared rather than concentrated among a small group of capital holders and AI superstars," Barr warned."
Three stylized economic futures are possible for generative AI’s impact on the labor market: a severe "jobless boom" and two scenarios with varying degrees of usefulness and complementarity. Agentic AI and autonomous systems could replace a wide range of professional, service, transportation, and manufacturing roles, sharply reducing labor demand even as productivity rises. Short-term widespread unemployment could occur without profound changes in education, training, and workforce development. Policy responses would need to include substantial investments in retraining, redesigned social safety nets, and measures to distribute the benefits of unprecedented economic growth more broadly.
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