Fifty Occupations Progress Either Destroyed or Dramatically Reduced
Among them:
- Telegraph operator
- Telephone switchboard operator
- Long-distance telephone operator
- Typewriter repairman
- Professional typist
- Typing-pool clerk
- Stenographer
- Teletype operator
- Elevator operator
- Lamplighter
- Ice-delivery man
- Coal-delivery man
- Milkman
- Railroad fireman
- Railroad telegrapher
- Railroad crossing-gate keeper
- Streetcar conductor
- Horse-carriage driver
- Urban stable worker
- Wagon maker
- Wheelwright
- Harness maker
- Canal-boat worker
- Town crier
- Street newspaper seller
- Linotype operator
- Newspaper compositor
- Photoengraver
- Film projectionist
- Film-processing technician
- One-hour photo clerk
- Video-rental clerk
- Door-to-door encyclopedia salesman
- Road-map salesman
- Manual bookkeeping clerk
- Manual payroll clerk
- Toll-booth collector
- Parking-meter collector
- Gas-station attendant in most states
- Traditional travel agent
- Many bank-teller positions
- Many filing-clerk positions
- Many factory assembly jobs
- Many warehouse sorting jobs
- Many farm labor jobs
- Human alarm-clock workers — once called “knocker-uppers”
- Copy-machine and duplicating-room workers
- Traditional typesetting workers
- Record-store clerks as a mass occupation
- Numerous clerical occupations replaced by computers and automation
Progress Has Always Killed Jobs — AI Is Just the Newest Killer
Every generation seems to believe that this time technology is going to destroy the working man.
Today it is Artificial Intelligence.
Yesterday it was the computer.
Before that it was automation.
Before that, electricity.
Before that, the automobile.
Before that, the railroad.
And on and on it goes.
Progress has always been a job killer.
But here is the part we often forget:
Progress usually does not eliminate the NEED. It eliminates the old way of satisfying that need.
We didn't stop communicating because the telegraph operator disappeared.
We didn't stop traveling because the horse-and-buggy industry collapsed.
We didn't stop taking photographs because the neighborhood photo-processing shop disappeared.
We didn't stop writing because the typewriter nearly disappeared.
We simply found a better, faster, cheaper way of doing those things.
Remember the Typewriter?
There was a time when the typewriter was an essential piece of business equipment.
And surrounding that typewriter was an entire economy.
There were:
Typewriter manufacturers.
Typewriter salesmen.
Typewriter repairmen.
Typing schools.
Professional typists.
Corporate typing pools.
Stenographers.
Carbon-paper manufacturers.
Ribbon manufacturers.
Correction-fluid manufacturers.
Office filing departments filled with paper records.
Then came the personal computer.
One machine didn't just replace the typewriter.
It disrupted an entire ecosystem of occupations.
And yet America did not stop working.
It changed how it worked.
The Graveyard of Progress
Consider just a few occupations that once provided real livelihoods:
Lamplighters disappeared when electricity illuminated the streets.
Ice-delivery men disappeared when refrigerators entered the home.
Telephone switchboard operators disappeared when automated switching and direct dialing arrived.
Elevator operators largely disappeared when elevators became automatic.
Railroad firemen declined when steam locomotives gave way to diesel and electric engines.
Linotype operators disappeared when computerized publishing arrived.
Film-processing workers disappeared when photography became digital.
Video-store clerks disappeared when streaming arrived.
Travel agents were dramatically reduced when consumers began booking their own flights and hotels online.
Bank tellers became fewer as ATMs, online banking and smartphone apps took over routine transactions.
Gas-station attendants vanished across much of America when motorists began pumping their own gasoline.
Toll collectors are disappearing as electronic tolling reads a transponder or license plate without requiring a person at all.
And perhaps the biggest transformation of all:
Millions of agricultural workers were displaced over generations by tractors, combines, mechanical harvesters and other machinery.
One farmer equipped with modern machinery can accomplish work that once required dozens—or hundreds—of human beings.
Was That Bad?
For the person whose job disappeared?
You bet it could be.
Economic progress is wonderful when viewed from fifty thousand feet.
It can be devastating when you're the guy standing on the ground holding a skill nobody wants anymore.
That distinction matters.
Whenever someone says,
"Technology creates new jobs."
They are usually correct.
But the new job is not necessarily created for the same person, in the same town, at the same wage, at the same time his old job disappears.
That is where much of the real pain of technological progress occurs.
Enter Artificial Intelligence
And now here comes AI.
Writers worry.
Artists worry.
Accountants worry.
Customer-service workers worry.
Programmers worry.
Teachers worry.
Lawyers worry.
Office workers worry.
And some of that concern is entirely justified.
AI will almost certainly eliminate some jobs.
It will reduce the number of workers required in others.
And it will probably create occupations we haven't even named yet.
Sound familiar?
It should.
We have been here before.
The question therefore may not be:
Will AI eliminate jobs?
Of course it will.
The better question is:
Which jobs will disappear, which jobs will change, and what will human beings do that machines still cannot do as well?
Progress Does Not Ask Permission
That may be the uncomfortable historical lesson.
Progress doesn't hold an election before arriving.
The automobile didn't ask the wagon maker.
Electricity didn't ask the lamplighter.
The refrigerator didn't ask the iceman.
Netflix didn't ask Blockbuster.
The smartphone didn't ask Kodak.
The computer didn't ask the typewriter repairman.
And Artificial Intelligence isn't going to ask us either.
Technology advances because someone discovers a faster, cheaper, easier or more productive way of accomplishing something.
Once society discovers that better way, history tells us it is extremely difficult to force people back to the older one simply to preserve the occupation attached to it.
And that list could easily be much longer.
The Real Lesson
Maybe technology isn't the enemy.
Maybe being unprepared for technological change is the enemy.
Human beings have an extraordinary ability to adapt.
We went from horses to automobiles.
From letters to telephones.
From telephones to smartphones.
From libraries full of reference books to nearly the accumulated knowledge of mankind sitting in our pockets.
From typewriters to computers.
And now from computers that merely follow instructions to computers that can increasingly interpret, generate, analyze and reason through information.
That is a major transition.
It deserves serious thought.
But history suggests something else too:
Every time technology has changed civilization, somebody has announced that the world of work was coming to an end.
Yet here we are.
Still working.
Still inventing.
Still complaining about work.
And still trying to invent something that will make tomorrow's work easier than today's.
Progress has always destroyed jobs.
The larger question is whether we are smart enough to make sure it continues creating opportunity as well.
