Will AI Take Away Our Jobs?

Is AI a threat to human jobs? Or can we use AI to do better in our jobs?

While it is exciting to see AI grow by leaps and bounds, there is also a fear that AI will take away our jobs. The fear is real because we are already seeing news of companies firing support staff. After all, AI chatbots are replacing human support staff.

When electricity was invented, kerosene lamp manufacturers and kerosene makers were threatened. When the car was invented, horsebuggy manufacturers were threatened. When the printing press was invented, the priests who preached with their voices were threatened. When Uber was growing, taxi cab drivers were threatened. History repeats itself, over and over again.

The simple answer to the question: Will AI replace jobs?... is Yes. It will replace some jobs. But it cannot replace all the jobs. In this post, let's understand what jobs AI can never replace and how you can position yourself in a space where you will continue to have job opportunities and the capability to earn.

If you observe the past few articles I've written and published, you will observe a pattern. I told my story. You read and listen to my story because my story is relatable to your own experience. I talk about building businesses, divorce, relationships, my fear of failure, and so on. You can relate to my story because we both are humans. Humans suffer. Our suffering tells a story.

The one thing AI can never do that humans are capable of is make wrong decisions and suffer. When we suffer, we can tell a story about it and that story will be heard by other people. AI can fabricate a fictional story, but AI cannot tell a true story of suffering. That's why no one will listen to an AI's story.

Marketing in its foundation is storytelling. Storytelling attracts attention and builds trust and community. The human-to-human connection can never be replaced by AI and hence AI cannot replace the job of creators, storytellers, marketers, and community builders. I can tell this for sure because you are reading this right now, an opinion of a human rather than a story written by ChatGPT. (Maybe ChatGPT is reading this too, but so what?)

Many jobs have been replaced by machines and automation in the past. It replaced manual labor first. Now it is replacing a lot of intellectual labour. However, the intellectual jobs that AI is replacing are the ones where a human connection is not involved. AI can replace data entry, data processing, legal analysis, and even surgery. But a doctor who gives comfort through his compassion for a suffering patient cannot be replaced by AI.

AI will take away boring jobs that don't involve human-to-human connection. And it needs to so that we humans have more time to connect, tell stories to each other, and have a good time. The world is not going into scarcity but into abundance.

Learn to communicate what you think (like I am doing right now). Learn copywriting. Learn storytelling. Learn to build communities. As long as you can command attention from people, you will be able to not just survive but thrive in this developing world.

If you are looking for a full-time job, personal branding, writing, and communication skills are still important. Do marketing through storytelling for the companies that you work for. Every company is looking for a good marketing and salesperson. You will never run out of marketing jobs because no company in the world is satisfied with the amount of sales they make. They always want more.

The next best job that cannot be replaced by AI is sales. Sales is not about giving information. Sales is about listening to the prospect and understanding their pain. AI cannot empathize with a human and understand their pain because AI cannot relate to the experiences of a human being.

In most of our sales calls, 70% of the time our salespeople are just listening to the prospect. If you go to a doctor and even before you tell the doctor about your problems, if the doctor prescribes you medicines, it's called medical malpractice. 70% of a doctor's job is to analyze the problem and diagnose it accurately. Once the problem is diagnosed, the solution becomes clear.

B2B sales and high-ticket consumer sales need talking to the prospect. The prospect cannot talk to an AI because they are not looking for information. They want a discussion and someone to listen. Even if AI is so good that it can have a face and can appear on Zoom calls, no one wants to share their life problems with an AI avatar.

AI can fetch data. AI cannot have an opinion. AI cannot listen.

AI cannot connect with other humans. So don't be afraid of AI. Use AI to make your life better and learn skills that AI can never do. Now you know what AI cannot do.

What do you think? Comment with your thoughts.