Is AI really coming for our jobs and wages? Past predictions of a ‘robot apocalypse’ offer some clues

Is AI Really Coming for Our Jobs and Wages?

Stories about automation destroying jobs and lowering wages were once widespread. However, a thorough analysis of their actual effects shows a less alarming reality.

Historical Fears of Automation

The idea that robots would take over jobs has circulated for over a decade. Today, similar concerns surround artificial intelligence (AI), especially with the rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, stirring anxiety about job security.

These fears often appear in news stories highlighting worker surveys or online discussions describing AI-driven job losses as “job massacres.” Such pessimism also marked earlier studies predicting automation's impact and a so-called robot apocalypse.

Key Research on Job Automation

In 2013, Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated that 47% of US jobs faced high automation risk within one or two decades. Shortly after, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research suggested around 50% of jobs in New Zealand were vulnerable.

The media amplified these predictions with alarming headlines like:

You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot – and Sooner Than You Think

Later, in 2017, Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo delivered the first solid proof that robots had begun displacing jobs and lowering wages in the US economy.

Summary

While automation and AI generate justified concerns about job displacement, long-term evidence reveals a more nuanced impact, not the inevitable mass job loss many fear.

“You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot – and Sooner Than You Think”

Author's summary: Despite persistent fears, extensive research shows automation and AI reshape jobs without causing the widespread destruction once predicted.

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The Conversation — 2025-11-10