Comment by David J. Walton

Second, historical evidence and economic theory suggest AI will likely increase total employment despite displacing workers from specific tasks. This pattern reflects an economic theory called Jevons’ Paradox. Under this theory, AI makes knowledge work more efficient. This reduces the cost of producing knowledge-intensive goods and services. This cost reduction then increases demand for those outputs, which ultimately increases demand for workers to produce them (even as fewer workers are needed per unit of output). This dynamic has driven employment growth through every major automation wave since the Industrial Revolution. The same will likely hold true for AI and, specifically, knowledge workers.