AI Won’t End Human Work, Andreessen Horowitz Partner Says
In briefAndreessen Horowitz partner David George argues fears of AI-driven mass unemployment are historically unfounded.George says AI will reorganize labor markets and create new industries rather than permanently eliminate human work.Economists and developers remain divided over how disruptive AI could become for white-collar jobs. As fears grow that artificial intelligence could wipe out white-collar jobs, Andreessen Horowitz general partner David George argues the technology could instead fuel a new wave of economic growth, higher productivity, and new industries. In a blog post published on Wednesday, George argued that fears of an AI “job apocalypse” rely on what economists call the “lump-of-labor” fallacy, the idea that there is a fixed amount of work available in the economy. “The problem with that premise is that it defies everything we know about people, markets, and economics. Human wants and needs are anything but fixed,” George wrote. “Keynes famously predicted almost a century ago that automation would lead to a 15-hour work-week, but of course Keynes was wrong. He was right that automation created a ‘labor surplus,’ but rather than just sit back and enjoy the ride, we found new and different productive endeavors to fill our time.” CEOs, including SpaceXs Elon Musk, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei,