Predictions that artificial intelligence will eliminate 20 to 50 percent of jobs lack evidence and contradict historical patterns, writes Rand Fishkin from SparkToro. The entrepreneur examined hundreds of studies spanning centuries of technological change and found no support for mass job displacement claims.
Fishkin’s research reveals that previous technologies created more employment opportunities than they eliminated. Farm mechanization between 1910 and 1960 displaced workers from agriculture but generated new industries. The personal computer revolution destroyed 3.5 million jobs since 1980 but created 19 million new positions.
Despite 15 to 20 years of machine learning development and five to 10 years of generative AI adoption, unemployment remains near historic lows. The current US unemployment rate sits within one percentage point of its 1953 post-war low of 3.4 percent.
Economic studies consistently show technology’s job-creating effects outweigh displacement. A 2023 analysis of 127 studies from the 18th century to present concluded that labor-displacing effects are “more than offset by compensating mechanisms that create or reinstate labor.”
Fishkin argues that dire AI predictions serve as marketing tactics by technology executives seeking media attention and business adoption. He notes that 60 percent of jobs in 2018 did not exist before 1940, demonstrating how technological progress continuously creates new employment categories rather than permanently reducing work opportunities.