AI Makes Workers More Valuable, Not Less
AI Makes Workers More Valuable, Not Less
https://amac.us/newsline/politics/ais-biggest-impact-may-be-making-workers-more-valuable/
Publish Date: 2026-06-26 10:55:00
Source Domain: amac.us
Posted on Friday, June 26, 2026
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by Outside Contributor
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Much of the public discussion about artificial intelligence begins with a fear: What happens when the machines take our jobs?
The concern is understandable. Since the industrial revolution, major technological advances have created anxiety about the future of work. Computers and mechanization reduced the need for farm labor, hand labor in manufacturing, and countless clerical tasks. Today, AI appears poised to automate activities that once seemed uniquely human.
Yet history suggests that worries are misplaced.
At a recent American Enterprise Institute event marking the 70th anniversary of artificial intelligence, experts in the telecommunications, utilities, transportation, and finance sectors described how businesses are actually deploying AI. Their message was remarkably consistent: AI is proving far more useful as a complement to workers than as a replacement for them.
That should not surprise us.
Businesses do not adopt technologies to eliminate jobs. Adoption is a competitive necessity for improving customer service, increasing productivity, reducing costs, and creating new sources of revenue. That changes the kinds of jobs people perform, with some, like telephone operators, fading into history. Almost by definition, innovations allow workers to accomplish more than they could before.
Consider the technologies that transformed the American economy during the past century. Railroads expanded markets. Telephones and then the internet accelerated and expanded communications. Electricity revolutionized production. Bar-code scanners transformed retailing. Each innovation altered the nature of work. But their most important contribution was making people more productive.
Artificial intelligence appears to be following a similar path.
Across industries, companies are using AI to handle routine tasks while…
