The AI Job Suck Is the China Shock of Today
Big economic changes tend to leave some Americans behind. The Trump administration needs to look forward rather than focus on the past.
Uncertainty ahead.
Photographer: Indranil Aditya /AFP via Getty Images
Rearview-mirror policymaking seems as unavoidable as it is self-defeating. President Donald Trump is falling into this trap with his focus on reversing the past quarter-century of trade policy — trying to put the toothpaste back in its tube. In attempting to undo the so-called China shock, he is missing the opportunity to preempt collateral damage from the coming artificial intelligence shock, which will reshape labor markets over the coming decade.
Even relatively positive economic changes hurt some workers. As with the decline of America’s manufacturing hubs, AI is likely to prove a challenge for millions of workers. At the more apocalyptic extreme, Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei told Axios this week that AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs and push unemployment as high as 20% over one to five years. While I’m not expecting anything that dire, there are subtle signs — as the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson pointed out last month — that the impacts may be already materializing in the unique and recent increase of the unemployment rate for recent college graduates to the highest since 2021.