Episode Overview

Podcast: The Morgan Housel Podcast
Host: Morgan Housel
Episode: "What AI Might Do To The Future of Work"
Date: August 7, 2025

This episode explores the anxieties and realities surrounding AI’s impact on the future of work. Morgan Housel draws on history, economics, and personal anecdotes to investigate how technological advances disrupt, reshape, and even create new job markets. He challenges both the panic and the optimism around AI, grounding the discussion in historical cycles of technological unemployment.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Catalyst: AI Usage Charts and Generational Anxiety

• [01:00] Housel opens with a story about ChatGPT usage dramatically dropping when the U.S. school year ended. This spike and sudden drop highlights how younger generations are at the forefront of adopting new technology—and why they also worry most about its impact on future work.
  • "Given AI and young people who are using it as their entire college experience...of course they're going to be among the most anxious of looking at their career path and saying, what's left for me?" (Housel, [02:00])

Technological Unemployment Is Not New

• [03:30] Housel reads a prescient quote on “technological unemployment”—then reveals it was written by John Maynard Keynes in 1930, not a modern commentator.

  • "We are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name, but of which they will hear a great deal...that is technological unemployment." (Keynes, quoted by Housel, [03:40])

• He elaborates with:

  • Anecdote: Henry Ford predicting the mechanization of farming in the early 1900s.
  • Example: In 1964, business leaders warning LBJ about the impending replacement of human labor with machines.
  • "There is such a long history going back hundreds of years over the fear that technology is going to take your job." (Housel, [05:40])

Keynes’ Forecast: Wealth, Productivity, and Leisure

• [07:00] Keynes believed technological progress would make Americans so productive that the average person would only work 15 hours a week by 2030—and spend the rest of their time in leisure and the arts.
  • But: While Keynes was almost exactly correct about wealth growth (GDP per person now 8x 1930), he missed how those gains would be used.
  • "What I think is even more interesting is what John Maynard Keynes thought it was going to do to the US labor market." (Housel, [08:30])
  • "Needless to say, that did not happen." (Housel, [10:00])

What Actually Happened: New Jobs, New Industries

• [10:40] Instead of working less, people raised their standards, found new jobs, and created entirely new industries.
  • Statistic: "MIT economist David Autor... has estimated that 60% of the jobs in the United States in 2018 did not exist in 1940." (Housel, [12:20])
  • "You could not even fathom what those fields or those jobs would even be, even if they seem like second nature to us today." (Housel, [13:10])

The Uncertain Future: “You’ll Do Something, It Just Doesn’t Exist Yet”

• [14:00] Housel suggests today’s fears mirror historical anxieties, with a crucial difference:
  • The jobs of the future almost certainly exist in industries we can’t currently imagine (as was true in 1930, 1960, and 1990).
  • "There's a very long history that backs up the idea that you're going to do something in some career, in some field. It just doesn't exist yet." (Housel, [14:50])
  • Douglas Adams quote:
    "Anything that is around when you were born is normal and natural. Anything invented between when you're age 15 and 35 is exciting... Anything invented after 35 is against the natural order of things." (quoted by Housel, [15:30])

The Reality: Transition Is Painful, Especially For Some

• [16:10] Housel gives a nuanced view: transitions are not painless.
  • For older or less adaptable workers, technological shifts can be devastating.
  • "It sucked. It was not good. And those were tough times for you." (Housel, [16:40])

Speculation: The Fate of “Bullshit Jobs” and a Re-prioritization of Labor

• [17:00] Drawing on the book Bullshit Jobs, Housel muses that many recently created white-collar administrative and managerial jobs might simply disappear due to AI.

  • Example: Elon Musk axing 75% of Twitter staff, with “not much happened next.”
  • "If AI is going to take a lot of these white collar consulting administrative jobs... is it a bad world if instead... young people again aspire to be carpenters and plumbers and nurses and maybe teachers? Is that a bad thing?" (Housel, [18:00])

• He sees a potential upside: jobs requiring hands-on skill and care, often undervalued, may gain prestige and become more desired.

  • "You can imagine that world... and there's part of me that wants to look at that world and say, that would not necessarily be a bad thing, would it?" (Housel, [19:00])

Hope and Historical Comfort

• [20:00] Housel concludes that while the details and technology change, the process of technological upheaval is constant.
  • While millions will be affected, history suggests adaptation—even if it comes with discomfort—remains likely.
  • "But sometimes when you're a little bit of a student of history, it can be comforting to look back on these things and say, we've been in these situations before." (Housel, [21:00])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The timeless nature of job anxiety:

  • "The issue of AI eating our jobs, taking our jobs is new. And I don't think anyone truly understands what's going to happen next. But the idea of technology taking our jobs... that is old and there are many examples of this." (Housel, [04:30])

• On the unpredictability of future work:

  • "There is a very long history that backs up the idea that you're going to do something in some career, in some field. It just doesn't exist yet." (Housel, [14:50])

• A dose of realism:

  • "You can't just say, don't worry, you're going to find new jobs doing something else and assume that that's a solution for all the worry. There's a lot of history that backs up that idea as well." (Housel, [16:50])

• On prestige shift and “real work”:

  • "But if there's an explosion of AI, that just eliminates a lot of those jobs... by necessity, younger people are forced to start looking at jobs that had been, until now, underutilized and underappreciated. Would that necessarily be a bad thing?" (Housel, [19:00])

• Anecdote about trade school resurgence:

  • "They made an announcement at the graduation of the number of students... going on to trade schools to become welders and carpenters and plumbers. And it was not a small number, and it made me happy to see that." (Housel, [20:30])

• On finding comfort in history:

  • "We've been in these situations before. The details are different. The technology is different. The cast of characters is different. But the idea that there is an explosion of technology that's going to make tomorrow's world look very different than today's is a problem that's been as old as time." (Housel, [21:10])

Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:00] — ChatGPT user drop and generational tech adoption
• [03:40] — Keynes' 1930 quote on technological unemployment
• [05:40] — Historical examples of job fears (Ford, Automation)
• [08:00] — Keynes’ wealth and leisure prediction for 2030
• [12:20] — MIT study: 60% of 2018 jobs didn’t exist in 1940
• [14:50] — Reassurance about unknown future career paths
• [15:30] — Douglas Adams quote on attitudes to new tech
• [17:00] — "Bullshit Jobs", white-collar AI threat, Twitter example
• [19:00] — Speculation about the resurgence of skilled trades
• [20:30] — Anecdote: trade schools at high school graduation
• [21:10] — Finding comfort in historical perspective

Conclusion

Morgan Housel’s episode weaves historical perspective, economic analysis, and a touch of personal optimism—and caution—into a nuanced take on what AI might mean for the future of work. While AI stands to disrupt millions of jobs (and perhaps kill off some less-essential ones), the pattern of technological progress is clear: new industries, jobs, and aspirations will emerge—most of which we can't yet imagine. The process won’t be easy or fair to everyone, but history suggests it's survivable—if we’re willing to adapt.