One of the biggest impacts may be on jobs, not only on the nature of work itself, but on the availability of work. Some crystal ball gazers are predicting that AI (working in concert with its older sibling, automation) will trigger massive job losses; others see AI producing a net gain in employment . Both views can be supported both logically and empirically; but they both can't be right. As Andy Kessler put it in a June 17 Wall Street Journal column, "The future happens, just not the way most people think." Kessler then walked readers through a shopping list of past predictions that turned out to be way off the mark: "megamistakes," he called them.

I've been thinking a lot recently about the many ways in which artificial intelligence may change our lives. One of the biggest impacts may be on jobs, not only on the nature of work itself, but on the availability of work. Some crystal ball gazers are predicting that AI (working in concert with its older sibling, automation) will trigger massive job losses; others see AI producing a net gain in employment. Both views can be supported both logically and empirically; but they both can't be right. As Andy Kessler put it in a June 17 Wall Street Journal column, "The future happens, just not the way most people think."