External signal·Noahpinion·Mar 28, 2026·Noah Smith·12 min read
Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI
“humans will always have plentiful, high-paying jobs no matter how good AI gets”
Summary
A March 2026 repost of Smith's widely-debated essay arguing that humans may keep plentiful, high-paying jobs no matter how capable AI becomes — clarifying that the claim was always conditional, not a guarantee. The mechanism is comparative advantage, plus the possibility of constraints on the total amount of AI (compute, energy, trust) that do not bind humans the same way, so labor demand persists even as AI improves.
Predictions for the future of work
Argues against mass technological unemployment on economic-theory grounds: as AI absorbs some tasks, scarce complementary human work and comparative advantage sustain employment. The forecast is structural, long-horizon, and explicitly hedged as possible rather than certain.
Originally published by Noahpinion · Mar 28, 2026
Read the original at Noahpinion