Technology Changes Do Not Lead To The End Of Jobs – They Lead To New Jobs…
“the people who do not use AI will be the people who lose their jobs“
Stone axes for copper and then bronze. Steel weapons, the Guttenberg printing press, water wheels, steam power, electricity, telephones, telex, fax, photo copiers, personal computers, high speed internet, combine harvesters, each one has transformed the world and yet humans have still found jobs for most people. The people without jobs today have poor reading skills, low verbal skills and are not willing to do the jobs which need doing.
When I was young I thought the purpose of writing essays was to impress the teacher. Now I realise it was to try and educate the writer. Sadly teaching in my experience is not very well taught in the UK. In August 2026, after I know someone’s name, it is not long before I steer the conversation on to, how are you using AI? One mouth two ears, asking others is a great way to learn more quickly. Full disclosure, much of the text here is from Google Gemini, but the text in italics are my thoughts and I have edited this, AI does not spew out a whole page. The pictures are from my travels.
The only job to have disappeared in the USA in recent years is the lift / elevator operator. That led to an explosion in the number of lifts in the USA, UK and of course all around the world, meaning more lifts exist today than ever before and more jobs in the whole industry. Full story…
Agriculture & The Plough: Shifted humanity from nomadic hunting/gathering to settled communities. It gave rise to towns, civil services, trade, and specialization.
The Wheel & Axle: Transformed transport, trade networks, and mechanical engineering (milling, pottery, and early machinery).
Paper & Movable Type Ink: Gutenberg’s press was revolutionary, but paper (invented in China) replaced bulky parchment and enabled mass administration, education, and bureaucratic jobs.
A pub quiz question is “what technology changed the world? – the plough”
In the UK the canals transformed transport and helped move the industrial revolution forward. Cheap canal transport allowed coal to be moved to where the steam power was needed. Cheap coal was critical to development of the steel industry.
The Internal Combustion Engine: Replaced horse power and manual cartage, spawning the entire automotive, shipping, aviation, and oil industries—along with millions of mechanic, driving, and manufacturing jobs.
Haber-Bosch Process (Synthetic Fertilizers): Arguably the single most impactful chemical invention in history. It allowed world food production to skyrocket, feeding billions and enabling the massive urbanization of the 20th century.
Refrigeration & Cold Chain: Completely changed how food was stored, shipped, and consumed worldwide, eliminating seasonal starvation and creating modern food logistics.
Antibiotics (Penicillin) & Vaccines: Doubled human life expectancy, keeping the global labour force healthier, working longer, and reducing child mortality.
To explain the steam engine James Watt related it to, one steam engine replaced 20 horses hence it was rated at 20HP. Businessmen knew how much it cost to feed and maintain 20 horses, and you would need 60 to cover 3 x 8 hour shifts thus they could then see the cost saving which they were being offered.
The Telegraph: Before the telephone, this was the “Victorian Internet.” It was the first time information travelled faster than a galloping horse, creating global financial markets, news agencies (like Reuters), and signalling jobs.
Radio & Television: Created mass media, global culture, advertising, and modern political communication, inventing the entertainment and broadcast industries.
The Semiconductor & Microprocessor: The silicon chip is the “steel” of the modern age. It powered everything from the personal computers you mentioned to modern cars, appliances, and industrial automation.
One of the cub badges was, demonstrate you could use a pay phone. It would be hard to find a working pay phone today.
The Intermodal Shipping Container: Standardized shipping boxes revolutionized global supply chains. It slashed transport costs, created the modern global economy, and changed how every physical product on Earth is made and delivered.
Global Positioning System (GPS): Transformed logistics, aviation, maritime trade, and everyday navigation, spawning entirely new industries like ride-sharing and location-based services.
London was transformed by the rise of the shipping container as it lost all the trade which once arrived on ships. Today it is very hard to believe it was once a very busy port.
Summary of the Industrial Shifts
Era | Key Paradigm Shift | Work Impact |
Ancient | Muscle to Mechanical (Plough, Wheel) | Shifted work from hunting to organized farming |
18th-19th Century | Animals/Water to Steam & Heat | Shifted work from farms to urban factories |
20th Century | Paper/Mechanical to Digital & Electric | Shifted work from manual factory labour to office/service industries |
21st Century | Manual Calculation to Automation | Shifting work from routine mental tasks to specialized creative & physical roles |
The short answer is no, AI won’t eliminate all jobs.
The idea that software will leave the entire human race with nothing to do makes for a dramatic headline, but history, economics, and basic human nature tell a very different story.
Why the “Zero Jobs” Scenario Doesn’t Happen
Automating Tasks Automating Jobs: Most jobs are a collection of dozens of different tasks. AI is brilliant at taking over the repetitive, predictable parts (writing routine emails, processing data, summarizing documents). Instead of destroying the job entirely, it shifts the human’s role toward oversight, strategy, complex problem-solving, and managing the AI.
The “Lump of Labour” Fallacy: There isn’t a fixed amount of work in the world that gets “used up” when machines get smarter. As technology makes goods and services cheaper and faster to produce, it creates entirely new demand, new industries, and new professions that were previously unimaginable.
The Human Connection Premium: Humans value dealing with humans. In healthcare, education, law, leadership, hospitality, and skilled trades, empathy, trust, physical presence, and accountability matter just as much as raw information. You might trust an AI to diagnose an X-ray, but you want a human doctor to explain what it means for your life.
What Will Actually Change
Massive Role Redefinition: The World Economic Forum estimates that while tens of millions of routine roles will be displaced globally, a higher number of new, augmented roles will be created.
The “Seniorisation” of Work: Basic entry-level “data entry” or “junior drafting” tasks are shrinking. Early-career workers are being expected to use AI to jump straight to higher-level judgment, coordination, and management roles much earlier in their careers.
Rise of the Physical & High-Trust Trades: Software can summarize a 500-page contract in two seconds, but it cannot fix a leaking pipe, rewire a house, run a nursery, or lay a brick wall. Physical, hands-on, and highly personal careers are proving to be the most resilient to pure digital automation.
The Reality
The most accurate prediction for the foreseeable future isn’t “AI will replace you.” It is “A human using AI will replace a human who isn’t.”
Just like the combine harvester didn’t end work—it just freed 50% of the population from manual field labour, so they could build the modern world—AI will likely push human labour further away from routine mental drudgery and into higher-level, creative, and physical pursuits.
I agree one can create a well thought through and documented email in less than 5-minutes which would have taken me two hours. I think AI will improve communication.
Education and Training
Regarding “education” my view is the world needs to use video and AI together with human teachers. Some people are excellent at explaining a topic, but they cannot teach 3 million students. A video can, but it needs a teacher in the classroom with 30 children to answer their questions. I have learnt more from AI in the last few months than the past couple of years from YouTube but for me YouTube is still a fantastic learning resource.
Your insight hits on what ed-tech researchers call the “Flipped Classroom” combined with Bloom’s 2-Sigma Problem.
Back in 1984, educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom proved that an average student tutored one-on-one performed better than 98% of students taught in a standard classroom. The problem? No society on Earth could afford one human tutor for every single child.
Your vision—combining world-class broadcast content, AI interactive support, and a human teacher in the room—is precisely how education is evolving to solve that problem.
The New Architecture of the Classroom
In this model, the roles split based on what each medium does best:
Video / Media Broadcaster
- Delivers top 1% primary explanations globally
The Video (The Masterclass): As you noted, a brilliant communicator like Brian Cox or a top-tier maths teacher can record a 10-minute explanation that is clearer than 95% of local classroom lectures. There is no need for millions of teachers to independently re-invent the wheel of explaining basic calculus or photosynthesis every morning.
AI Tutor / System
- Interactive Practice
- Gives 1-on-1 Socratic Feedback and tailors speed to the student
The AI (The Instant Feedback Engine): Video is passive—you can’t interrupt a YouTube video to say, “I didn’t get what you did in step 3.” AI bridges that gap. Organizations like Khan Academy are building AI tools (like Khanmigo) explicitly programmed to act like Socrates. It doesn’t give students the answer; it looks at their work, spots the exact logic error, and asks prompting questions to help them figure it out.
Freethink Media+ 1
Human Teacher
- The Anchor
- Provides empathy, context,
- Discipline & physical help.
The Human Teacher (The Guide on the Side): With the lecture offloaded to video and routine grading/drills handled by AI, the classroom teacher stops being a “sage on the stage.” Instead, they can spend their time floating around the room, helping the 4 or 5 kids who are struggling, managing social dynamics, keeping motivation high, and answering the nuanced questions AI can’t handle.
Why Conversational AI Outpaces Passive Video
Your experience of learning faster from AI than from YouTube comes down to Active Retrieval vs. Passive Consumption:
Custom Pacing: On YouTube, if a creator skips a single foundational assumption, you get lost or have to pause and search elsewhere. With AI, you can stop the explanation mid-sentence and say, “Wait, explain that word to me like I’m 10.”
Contextual Memory: YouTube doesn’t know what you watched yesterday. AI knows what you asked 10 minutes ago and connects the new concept directly to your previous questions.
Dialogue forces attention: Watching a video lets your brain slip into passive “entertainment mode.” Engaging in a back-and-forth dialogue forces your brain to generate responses, which cements long-term memory far more effectively.
Technology won’t replace the local schoolhouse, but it is finally freeing human teachers from the impossible task of trying to lecture, tutor, grade, and mentor 30 different minds all at the exact same speed.
My gut feeling about education was not far off where it is going in some schools, For me that seems a fairly logical guess, which could be applied not only to school children but any learning scenario.
Your gut feeling is dead on—and it extends far beyond primary and secondary schools. The exact same shift is happening right now in corporate training, professional upskilling, adult education, and self-directed adult learning.
For a long time, adult learning suffered from two big flaws:
The “One-Size-Fits-All” Seminar: Companies would put 50 adults in a room or force them to watch an hour of dry, pre-recorded video modules where 80% of the material was either stuff they already knew or irrelevant to their specific job.
DreamClass
The Passive Trap: Reading a manual or watching a video feels like learning, but as soon as you try to apply it in the real world, the gaps in your understanding immediately show up.
Ollo AI Learning Platform
The combination of broadcast media, interactive AI, and a human expert fixes both problems across almost every learning scenario:
How the Model Applies to Other Fields
Corporate & Technical Upskilling: A software engineer or mechanic doesn’t need a trainer to lecture them on basic theory. They can watch high-production video overviews, use an AI tutor to write code or troubleshoot simulated faults (asking infinite “stupid questions” without judgment), and then meet with a senior human mentor to work through complex, real-world edge cases.
Professional Certifications & Trades: Whether studying for a pilot’s licence, learning financial regulation, or taking a medical refresher, an adult can move through background material at 2x speed using AI to instantly test their comprehension. The human instructor’s job becomes pure practical evaluation and high-stakes scenario training.
Ollo AI Learning Platform
Personal Development & Hobbies: Even for something like learning music theory or photography, you can watch a world-class YouTube tutorial, use AI as an interactive conversational partner to clarify complex concepts, and then take a lesson with a real-life tutor to correct your physical technique or form.
The Fundamental Shift: Fixed vs. Variable
Traditional education fixed the time (e.g., 6 weeks, 1 hour a day) and got variable learning outcomes (some people got A’s, some got C’s).
AI Learning Platform such as Ollo are the way forward
This new model flips that formula: the learning outcome is fixed (everyone has to master it), but the time is variable.
If an adult learner needs 10 minutes to understand a concept using an AI conversational loop, great. If they need 3 hours of back-and-forth dialogue and three different video explanations to get it, the AI will patiently adapt without rushing them. The human guide then steps in to verify that the knowledge is real, practical, and ready to use.
Traditional education fixed the time (e.g., 6 weeks, 1 hour a day) and got variable learning outcomes (some people got A’s, some got C’s).
This new model flips that formula: the learning outcome is fixed (everyone has to master it), but the time is variable.
How AI and Mastery Learning Can Break the Literacy Gap
Using the “Variable Time, Fixed Outcome” model specifically for reading in UK schools could fundamentally change those statistics:
- Catching Phonics Gaps Instantly: Reading is built on phonics—decoding sounds and blending them into words. If a 7-year-old boy misses a few key sound patterns (like sh, ch, or complex vowels), traditional instruction keeps moving forward anyway. An AI reading assistant can listen to a child read aloud, pinpoint the exact phonemes causing hesitation, and immediately provide micro-lessons on those specific sounds before the child internalizes failure.
- Removing the Social Shame: Struggling to read in front of a classroom of peers is deeply embarrassing, especially for young boys, who often react to that shame by acting out, getting suspended, or checking out mentally. A conversational AI doesn’t judge, get frustrated, or roll its eyes. It provides a private, safe space to practice without embarrassment.
- Matching Reading Content to High Interest: A 13-year-old boy with the reading age of an 8-year-old hates reading because books written at his reading level are childish (about farm animals or toys). AI can dynamically generate or adapt complex, age-appropriate stories—about sports, gaming, science, or mechanics—using simpler sentence structures and vocabulary tailored precisely to his current level.
The Ultimate Payoff
If every child left school with solid literacy skills, the ripple effect across society would be immediate:
[ Early Reading Mastery ]
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[ Higher Self-Esteem & Engagement ]
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[ Drastic Drop in School Exclusions ]
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[ Access to Apprenticeships & Jobs ]
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[ Massive Reduction in Reoffending & Crime ]
By shifting the goal of education from “How many months did you sit behind a desk?” to “Did you master the skill before moving on?”, we stop writing off young people before they even have a chance to enter the workforce.
I am sold on this teaching idea, the irony in the UK is that the education system moves at the speed of a glacier not a cheetah.
That irony is painful precisely because it is so accurate. While technology moves exponentially—shifting like a cheetah—state education systems move like glaciers, weighed down by bureaucracy, political cycles, and entrenched traditions.
Homework & Tutoring First: Parents and students are already adopting AI tools at home to plug gaps that the school day missed.
Teacher Relief Tools: Overworked UK teachers are independently using AI software behind the scenes to generate differentiated worksheets and mark routine work, saving 10+ hours a week on administration, so they can spend more face-to-face time with students.
The glacier will eventually catch up—not because it wants to, but because the gap between how the real world operates and how traditional classrooms function will become too wide to ignore.
How Many Jobs Types Are There? (24,300 by one measure, 9870 by another)
From Agave farming to Workshops for the handicapped See “Handicapped Workshop”.
Answer, in the USA this is a link to an Excel file which lists all the jobs by their industry code. It does not tell you how many people do each job. The only job in the last 60-years to drop off the list is. Elevator Operator.
Since lifts aka elevators have stopped having operators their numbers have exploded.
Lifts – The Growth Of Which Exploded Once The Operator Was Removed
The Explosion of the Hidden Ecosystem
When elevators were operated manually by a driver standing at the lever, there was roughly one lift worker per elevator. Because it was expensive to pay that operator’s full-time salary, elevators were mostly reserved for luxury department stores, grand hotels, and high-end office blocks. The total market was relatively small.
When the automated push-button elevator replaced the operator, the cost of running a lift plummeted. That single shift made vertical transportation economically viable everywhere—from 3-story residential flats and multi-storey car parks to sprawling hospitals, shopping centres, and 100-story skyscrapers.
Because the number of lifts globally exploded from thousands into millions, an entire “back-end” industrial web emerged to replace that single operator:
[ THE OLD MODEL ] [ THE MODERN ECOSYSTEM ]
One Lift Operator per car Design & Civil Engineers (Designing shafts & cabs)
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Manufacturing & Component Suppliers
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Installation Teams & Electricians
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Specialist Maintenance Technicians
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Safety Inspectors & Compliance Officers
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Emergency Response & IoT Monitoring Centers
By the Numbers
- Specialist Mechanics: In the US alone, there are over 24,000 highly paid specialist elevator mechanics. Because elevators are heavy, complex mechanical devices moving humans through space, strict safety regulations require regular certified inspections and servicing.
- A Massive Global Industry: Modern lifts generate a global market value exceeding $85 billion annually. The majority of that revenue comes from maintenance contracts, modernization, and parts manufacturing rather than initial sales.
- High-Skilled, In-Demand Jobs: Elevator installation and repair is consistently listed as one of the highest-paying nondegree trades, with median mechanics earning six-figure salaries due to the precise electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical skills required.
The Economic Principle
By automating the low-skill surface task (pushing the lever and opening the door), we unlocked the ability to build dense, vertical modern cities.
The single operator standing in the cab was replaced by a team of engineers, factory workers, safety regulators, software programmers, and mobile maintenance technicians—creating far more total employment, higher wages, and vastly more economic value than the lever-operator ever could.
Industries On The Rise, Level And Declining
Saying there are no jobs is a popular expression, the irony is some people are working flat out. They are never interviewed as they are too busy working.
Rising
- Healthcare & Ageing Care
- Data & AI Infrastructure
- Green Energy & Clean Tech
Steady
- Skilled Trades & Repair
- Education & Mentorship
- Hospitality & Leisure
Decline
- Routine Admin & Secretarial
- Manual Assembly & Mining
- Traditional Mail & Print
These sectors are expanding rapidly due to demographic ageing, the digital revolution, and energy transitions:
Health Care & Social Assistance: Driven by ageing populations globally. Roles expanding fastest include home health aides, nurse practitioners, geriatric care coordinators, and medical technology operators.
Information & Data Infrastructure: While traditional tech roles are adjusting to AI, specialized demand is surging for cybersecurity analysts, cloud architects, AI engineers, and data privacy specialists.
Green Energy & Environmental Tech: Solar panel installers, wind turbine technicians, battery engineers, and smart-grid specialists are among the fastest-growing job titles in national labour statistics.
Specialized Logistics & Supply Chain: High-speed fulfillment, automated warehouse management, and specialized freight coordination continue to grow alongside e-commerce.Accordion content
These sectors aren’t disappearing, but the tools used inside them are shifting:
Skilled Trades & Construction: Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and HVAC technicians remain heavily insulated from automation. Demand is steady to high, especially as retrofitting homes and building new infrastructure grows.
Professional & Technical Services: Accounting, legal, engineering, and management consulting remain steady, but workers are expected to produce higher volumes of output using AI and software.
Hospitality & Food Services: Personal human interaction, tourism, and dining out remain resilient, though routine ordering tasks are increasingly automated via kiosks and apps.
Education & Early Years Care: Classroom teaching, nursery management, and specialized education remain steady due to the indispensable need for human supervision, emotional support, and social development.
These sectors face long-term contraction due to automation, digital self-service, or shifting economic demand:
Routine Administrative & Clerk Roles: Telemarketers, data entry clerks, desktop publishing operators, and routine filing staff are rapidly shrinking as direct digital self-service and software take over.
Traditional Print & Postal Services: Postal sorting, print shop operators, and physical media manufacturing continue long-term secular declines.
Fossil Fuel & Legacy Mining: Coal mining and heavy fossil-fuel extraction roles face steady long-term reductions as power grids shift toward renewables and natural gas.
Routine Labor-Intensive Manufacturing: Basic manual assembly jobs continue to be replaced by industrial robotics and automated precision machinery.
The weir shown in the photograph below is the Upper Weir at Linton Falls on the River Wharfe, Grassington, North Yorkshire.
This weir was constructed to channel and control water flow for Linton Mill, a historic textile mill complex located roughly 250 meters downstream on the south bank of the river.
History of Linton Mill
- Origins: A corn mill originally occupied the site during medieval times.
- Textile Era: In 1788, it was converted into a worsted-spinning mill. During the 19th century, it transitioned primarily to cotton spinning. A large five-story cotton mill was built on the site, though it burned down in 1912 and was replaced by a smaller structure.
- Footbridge Connection: The iconic footbridge (Tin Bridge) at Linton Falls just downstream was originally constructed so workers living in Grassington could cross the river to get to work at the mill. This explains why the path to the bridge is so narrow.
- Closure & Demolition: Operations ceased in the 1950s. The mill fell into disrepair and was demolished in 1983. Today, the site has been redeveloped into residential housing, though the original stone retaining walls and worker cottages remain.
Hydroelectric Power
The small stone building visible on the left side of the weir in the photo played a key role in local energy history:
Restoration (2012): The historic turbine house was restored and reopened as a modern hydroelectric scheme featuring Archimedes screw turbines. It is now a Scheduled Monument and generates green electricity fed back into the local grid.
Early Electric Power (1909): The Grassington Electric Supply Company leased this upper weir to generate electricity for Grassington, building a small powerhouse over the sluice gate.
Craven Hydro Electric (1920s–1948): After the initial venture failed, the owners of Linton Mill took over generation, supplying electricity to the surrounding village until nationalisation of the UK power grid in 1948.
