What happens when a skill can be almost fully automated with AI? Do these jobs simply disappear? Instead of purely speculating we can simply look at concrete examples. Take translators. Translation can be 100% automated with AI, and this capability has been around since 2023. So we have 2-3 years of data. What we see so far: - Stable FTE count, but slow hiring or no hiring - Nature of the job switched from doing it yourself to supervising AI output (post-editing) - Increased task volume - Decreased hourly rates - Freelancers getting cut We are now starting to see the same pattern with software jobs. Overall there's definitely some pressure on employment but we're very far from "the jobs just go away". In fact the number of full-time translators is still modestly increasing. When the economy rebounds from the ongoing "stealth recession" and companies start hiring again, the world will have more professional software engineers than we did before GenAI. The mass layoffs you're about to see in the tech sector won't be caused by job automation. They will be caused by fears about the economy, like in 2022. It won't be unrelated to AI, mind you, since it ties into big tech capex needs. But it won't be due to automation.