You're really not that special
This thought-provoking blog post explores the impending impact of AI on knowledge-based professions, mirroring the redundancy faced by blue-collar jobs due to automation in past decades. It also presents practical strategies for adapting to this change and thriving in an AI-dominated landscape.
You know what's funny about watching AI panic sweep through white-collar professions? The absolute shock that their jobs might not be as secure as they thought. Welcome to what blue-collar workers have been experiencing for the past 60 years.
The Great Manufacturing Exodus
I've been watching this play out since I was a storeman in the early 1990s. Back then, everything was still paper-based - picking slips came off dot-matrix printers that sounded like machine guns, and there were people everywhere handling paperwork. Forms in triplicate, carbon copies, filing cabinets full of shipping documents. It was labour-intensive as hell, but it employed a lot of people.
Then they rolled out personal data entry devices - those chunky handheld scanners that looked like oversized calculators. Suddenly, all that paperwork vanished. No more carbon copies, no more filing clerks, no more people checking off items on printed lists. The technology didn't just make the process more efficient - it made entire job categories redundant.
The blokes who'd been doing that work for decades? They were told to adapt or find something else. No grand retraining programs, no government assistance, just "sorry mate, we don't need you anymore." And this wasn't a one-off event - it was the beginning of a systematic dismantling of labour employment across the Western world.
The Knowledge Worker Bubble
While factories were closing and entire industrial towns were turning into rust belts, something interesting was happening in the cities. Knowledge work was booming. Universities, consulting firms, tech companies, financial services - all expanding rapidly. The message was clear: get an education, work with your brain instead of your hands, and you'll be safe from automation.
This created a two-tier economy. Blue-collar workers faced wave after wave of job displacement as manufacturing moved offshore or got automated. Meanwhile, knowledge workers enjoyed decades of job security and growing incomes. They could look down at the factory closures and think "well, that's sad, but it won't happen to us."
The smugness was palpable. Knowledge work was supposedly different - more creative, more complex, requiring human judgment and interpersonal skills that machines could never replicate. These weren't mindless assembly line jobs that could be easily automated. These required critical thinking, communication, analysis - uniquely human capabilities.
Except they weren't.
The AI Reality Check
What we're seeing now with AI is the same pattern that hit manufacturing, just delayed by a few decades. Tasks that seemed to require human intelligence are being automated away, piece by piece. And just like in manufacturing, it's not happening all at once - it's a gradual erosion that makes each individual redundant.
First, it's the junior analyst roles. AI can crunch through financial data faster than any graduate trainee. Then it's the content writers - why pay someone to write marketing copy when GPT can do it in seconds? Legal research, basic coding, customer service, even some medical diagnostics - the list keeps growing.
The pattern is identical to what happened in manufacturing:
- New technology makes certain tasks more efficient
- Initially, it seems like it's just augmenting human workers
- Gradually, businesses realise they need fewer people to do the same work
- Job categories start disappearing
- Workers are told to "upskill" or find something else
The Delusion of Exceptionalism
The funniest part is listening to knowledge workers explain why their particular job is different. "AI can't replace lawyers because legal work requires judgment." Really? Tell that to the paralegals being replaced by document review algorithms. "Marketing needs human creativity." Sure, but most marketing is formulaic bullshit that AI can churn out just fine.
It's the same rationalisations I heard from skilled tradesmen in the 90s. "Machines can't do precision work like we can." Right up until CNC machines started doing it better, faster, and more consistently.
The truth is, most knowledge work isn't as knowledge-intensive as we like to pretend. A lot of it is pattern matching, information processing, and following established procedures - exactly the kind of stuff AI excels at. The creative, strategic, genuinely high-level thinking that requires human judgment? That's a much smaller portion of most jobs than people want to admit.
The Coming Redundancy Wave
Here's what's going to happen, and it's already starting:
Phase 1: Task Automation (happening now) AI tools handle specific tasks within jobs. Fewer people needed to produce the same output. "Productivity gains" that translate to workforce reductions.
Phase 2: Role Consolidation (next 2-5 years) Entire job categories become redundant as AI handles their core functions. Junior and mid-level positions disappear first. Senior roles remain but each covers much more ground.
Phase 3: Industry Restructuring (5-10 years) Entire industries reorganise around AI-first models. The survivors are either the people managing the AI systems or doing the truly high-level work that still requires human judgment.
This isn't speculation - it's already visible in industries that adopted AI early. Customer service centres, content mills, financial analysis shops - they're all running with skeleton crews compared to five years ago.
Why This Time Isn't Different
Knowledge workers keep insisting their situation is different from manufacturing because:
- Their work is more complex
- It requires human judgment
- Clients prefer human interaction
- AI makes mistakes
These are the same arguments manufacturing workers made about automation in the 80s and 90s. They were wrong then, and they're wrong now.
Complexity? Most knowledge work follows predictable patterns once you break it down. AI doesn't need to understand everything - it just needs to identify patterns and produce acceptable outputs.
Human judgment? Sure, but how much of your actual day involves genuine judgment calls versus following established procedures and best practices?
Client preference? Clients prefer results. If AI can deliver faster, cheaper, and with consistent quality, preferences change quickly.
AI mistakes? So do humans. The question isn't whether AI is perfect - it's whether it's good enough to replace human workers at a fraction of the cost.
The Uncomfortable Truth
The uncomfortable truth is that most knowledge workers are about as replaceable as factory workers were 30 years ago. The technology is different, the timeline is different, but the fundamental economic forces are identical.
Companies exist to make money, not to provide employment. If they can get the same output with fewer people, they will. Every efficiency gain, every "productivity improvement," every AI tool that makes workers more effective is also making some of those workers redundant.
The knowledge worker class that spent decades looking down on manufacturing workers for being "unskilled" is about to discover they're not as special as they thought. Their jobs aren't protected by education or professional credentials - they're just temporarily protected by the limitations of current technology.
What You Can Actually Do
So what can you do about this? The same thing blue-collar workers should have done but largely didn't:
Get realistic about your value proposition. What do you actually do that's genuinely difficult to automate? Not what your job description says, but what you actually contribute that an AI system couldn't.
Develop skills that complement AI rather than compete with it. Learn to work with AI tools, manage AI systems, or solve problems that AI can't handle yet.
Build financial resilience. If your job might disappear in the next decade, plan accordingly. Don't assume retraining programs or government support will save you.
Stop looking down on "lower-skilled" workers. You're all in the same boat now. The sooner knowledge workers accept this, the sooner they can start preparing properly.
The redundancy wave that hit manufacturing is coming for knowledge work. The only question is whether you'll see it coming and prepare, or whether you'll be caught off-guard like so many factory workers were in the 80s and 90s.
Your university degree isn't a shield against automation - it's just a piece of paper that made you feel safe while the technology caught up.