Why We Shouldn’t Panic About AI

https://www.city-journal.org/article/artificial-intelligence-jobs-technology

Publish Date: 2026-06-01 08:03:00

It sometimes seems that today’s commentators cannot view developments through anything other than a binary lens—each new event or technology will either bring peace and bounty or catastrophe. The debate over artificial intelligence often exemplifies this tendency. On one side, AI seems poised to bring an explosion in productivity, increased leisure, and more freedom from life’s less pleasant tasks. On the other, AI heralds a bleak future of mass unemployment and a dispirited and restive population, in which a few benefit greatly, while others live purposeless lives on a guaranteed government income.

The skeptics paint a dark picture. In a recent article entitled “Something Big is Happening,” AI startup founder Matt Shumer declared that the technology is “coming for” anyone whose job “happens on a screen,” including coders, accountants, writers, journalists, and even medical doctors. Even some AI developers—among them Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk—see the inevitability of what might be called a jobs apocalypse and accordingly advocate for a universal basic income to care for the soon-to-be unemployable millions.

Finally, a reason to check your email.

Of course, AI and robotics will displace many workers, as have all technological revolutions in the past. Maybe the coders of whom Shumer writes will need to apply their keen intelligence and fine talents to other fields. Perhaps superior AI-powered robots will supersede miners, oil field workers, and others in dangerous and dirty jobs as well. The list of potentially obsolete occupations will certainly grow longer as AI develops and will likely include administrative assistants, receptionists, financial analysts, travel agents, junior-level graphic designers, and others.

But in this case, as in all past innovation waves, the new technologies should also create new business and employment opportunities….

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