![[images/AI Was Supposed To Take Your Job. Why Hasn't It.webp]] **Creator:** Maxinomics · **Published:** 2026-07-01 · **Length:** 20:22 · [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRv5kW5mAxM) > *Every time a disruptive technology arrives, the prediction is exactly the same: mass unemployment. ATMs were supposed to eliminate bank tellers. Spreadsheets were supposed to wipe out accountants. History tells a completely different, and terrifyingly counterintuitive, story.* — video description ## 1) Detailed outline ### [0:00] The ATM that was supposed to end tellers - Sweltering June day, **Barclays** north London: velvet curtain, beige box, paper voucher in → crisp **£10** out. Crowd murmurs → industry certainty: window tellers are finished. - Birth of the **ATM** — obvious replacement tech. Surprise to nearly everyone (incl. bank execs): as ATMs proliferated, **bank teller** employment **climbed**, roughly **doubling over ~50 years** to a peak around **2007**. - Pattern rhyme: ATMs, spreadsheets, photography, printing press… now **Claude** / "Is AI going to take my job?" - Sponsor teaser: **Cometeer** coffee (transcript OCR: Commentaire/Comitia). ### [1:07] What people want (Maslow + the unmakeable pyramid) - **Maslow** pyramid prop: five colored stackable layers; layer above food/shelter/water = **security** (job) → belonging → achievement → self-actualization. - Host couldn't buy this exact prop anywhere (Amazon, Etsy, China factories) — not enough certain demand to justify tooling. - Game: cost of first **1,000** six-inch five-color plastic pyramids? Guesses $75k/$30k; for **one** unit ~**$17k** just for five aluminum molds → ~**$30**/piece to break even on 1,000 before packaging/fulfillment → nobody makes it → market records a **zero** that could have been a one. - Yet the pyramid exists (foreshadow). Metaphor: tip of an **iceberg** — visible demand vs vast unseen arrangements of atoms/bits people would delight in (electricity → fridge "winter in a box" as 250-year-ago unknown). ### [3:45] What is a job exactly? - Every job = **input → different output**: nurse (sick→healthy), writer (info→article), programmer (process→efficiency), chef (ingredients→dinner). - Work = pushing buttons through the complexity between what you have and what the customer wants — PowerPoints, spreadsheet copy-paste, consulting/IB grind years, Pyramid Principle, 20 revision rounds. - Tasks exist because someone else won't/doesn't have time — question is what must be done, not whether you like it. - Anxiety montage: Uber drivers vs **Waymo**; programmers vs **ChatGPT**; lawyers vs **Gemini** surfing unknown case law; warehouse workers vs **Amazon** robots (Fisher/fulfillment bots) running ~200 hours. - Do you even like the job? **~4/100** new Uber drivers still driving after one year. Coding tools' arc = write *less* code (assembly→compilers→shortcuts→autocomplete→packages). Lawyers skip thousand-page searches. Amazon: hire **~150** new workers/year per warehouse just to keep **100** roles staffed (churn). - AI often automates **tasks**, not the job people romanticize. - Lottery question: win **$10M** — keep working? Surveys: **>half** wouldn't stay at current job; **<25%** say they wouldn't stop for any amount. Money = optionality / ability to say **no**. Ben Franklin "time is money" flipped: people work to **buy time** (house, food, car) so they don't build/grow/walk — the gap is mostly disliked steering/clicking/waiting. ### [7:48] Elevators vs airplanes - Reframed question: will AI take your *tasks*? Probably. Your *job*? Depends — **elevator operator** or **airline pilot**. - **Elisha Otis** + P.T. Barnum spectacle: chop the cable midair → safety brake catches → enables passenger elevators → skyscrapers. Early cars needed a lever operator for ~**100 years**. - U.S. Census occupation titles: **elevator operator** last appears in **1960** census — **the only job fully eliminated by automation** in the past **60 years** of tracked titles. - Pilots appear ~**1920**. Autopilot since 1920s; fly-by-wire since 80s; auto-land in zero visibility — pilots mostly watch screens. Prediction: obsolete. Reality: pilot counts **exploded** (more/bigger planes, longer routes, more flights). Automation made each pilot more powerful; humans still own bird strikes, hydraulic failure, medical emergencies, security — "final human who says this plane lands safely." - Air travel: rich toy → hundreds of millions of passengers wanting trained humans up front. **"They automated 90% of my job and created ten times more of it."** ### [10:34] Sponsor: Cometeer - Flash-frozen coffee concentrate (−321°F), recyclable aluminum, World Mug collection; $20 off first order. ### [12:09 / 12:28] Why you don't own a 3D printer (competing against non-consumption) - History + data lean: AI probably **changes** your job more than deletes it — like refusing a computer at a modern desk. - Pyramid returned: host **3D printed** it. Post-bubble hype ("everyone will have a printer; print everything") failed — biggest reason: few people can **design in 3D/CAD**. Simple desk hook would take him a day; CAD pros scoff; software now ~**$1,000/yr**. - Insight: printer files are code-like instructions → **Codex / Claude** helped in ~**30 minutes** of prompts + setup. Nobody's "hierarchy-of-needs pyramid designer" job was taken — prop made two videos better. - Formal name: **competing against non-consumption** (Christensen) — when no satisfying solution exists, people choose **nothing**. ### [14:35] 60% of jobs did not exist 50 years ago - Census new titles sample: airplane designer, tattooer, wind-turbine technician, cybersecurity analyst, conference planner, mental health counselor, **dog psychiatrist**. - **~60%** of jobs worked today didn't exist 50 years ago; only one fully removed (elevator operator). - **David Autor** ("academic voice of the American worker") + MIT team: 80 years of Census records; separate inventions that **augment** jobs from those that replace. New work explodes where "makes job better" tech pours in. - Examples: ATMs expanded teller roles; spreadsheets expanded accountants/analysts; nail guns freed carpenters for more elaborate houses; word processors → far more writers (WSJ staff didn't shrink); Adobe/digital edit → Netflix-scale video, not fewer editors. - Core question: **augment or replace?** Host leans augment (check his work; assume bias — same for Autor). Safest bet on "Will AI take my job?": **No — but someone using AI will take your job if you don't use AI.** ### [16:52] Footnotes 1. **Won't soften the close:** non-AI applicants will soon look like "I don't use computers" for typing jobs. Host is AI-forward tinkerer; what's *not* possible is still a larger swath — magic until a ceiling, then incremental gains on a learning curve. Even flat **+10%/week** ≈ **520%** more output/year; compounding is enormous. 2. **AI doesn't replace the hard parts** (thinking). Searching a 100-page PDF for citations is 20 minutes nobody values; the video's writing, ideas, footage, graphics (Christie Muldoon; Seth Laupus & Xingpei Shen) stay human — team never thought "one fewer person because of AI." 3. **Why operators really vanished:** Burj Khalifa top floors can take **10–15 min** down — vertical transport limits height more than structure. Modern elevator *systems* (optimize stops with 20 people, multi-floor transfers) outgrew a human stuck in the box; cheap hotels couldn't justify an operator either — no expandable responsibilities inside the car. ## 2) Things mentioned ### Companies, products and tools - **Barclays** (ATM debut); ATMs broadly. - AI: **Claude**, **ChatGPT**, **Gemini**, **Codex**; coding stack evolution (compilers, autocomplete, open source). - Mobility/logistics: **Uber**, **Waymo**, **Amazon** warehouses/robots. - Creative/tech: **Adobe**, **Netflix**, **Wall Street Journal**; 3D printers / CAD ($1k/yr software). - Elevators: **Otis**; skyscrapers / **Burj Khalifa**. - Sponsor: **Cometeer** (flash-frozen concentrate; Intelligentsia, Onyx mentioned); Nespresso exec anecdote. ### People, research and ideas - **Maslow** hierarchy of needs; Ben Franklin time/money saying (critiqued). - **Elisha Otis**, **P.T. Barnum**. - **David Autor**, Caroline Chin, Anna Salomons, Bryan Seegmiller — *New Frontiers: The Origins and Content of New Work, 1940–2018*, QJE Aug 2024. - James Bessen automation/occupations paper (cited in description). - Clayton Christensen–style **competing against non-consumption**. - Lottery/work surveys; Pyramid Principle (consulting). ### Markets, labor and stats - Bank tellers roughly doubled with ATM rollout to ~2007 peak. - Uber driver 1-year retention ~4/100; Amazon ~150 hires/year to keep 100 warehouse roles. - Census: only elevator operator fully eliminated by automation in ~60 years; pilots explode with cockpit automation. - ~**60%** of current jobs didn't exist 50 years ago. - Mold economics (~$17k) blocking niche physical goods; 3D print + LLM design unlock. ### Policy / future framing - Not a regulatory episode — cultural/labor: will AI take tasks vs jobs; human-in-the-loop for high-stakes failure modes (aviation); skill mandate to use AI or lose to those who do. ## 3) Biographies ### Maxinomics (channel / host) Morning Brew economics explainer (**@Maxinomics**). This episode mixes prop storytelling (Maslow pyramid), labor history, and Autor's new-work research into an AI-job anxiety answer. Credits: producer **Phil Andrews** (on-camera); editor Christie Muldoon; motion graphics Seth Laupus & Xingpei Shen; thumbnail Tom Grillo; DoPS Sam Wolf; franchise content producer Tariq Abdellatif; Morning Brew president Devin Emery. ### Phil Andrews (on-camera producer) Walks ATM history, builds/prints the pyramid with Claude/Codex help, pilots the elevator-vs-pilot contrast, and delivers the "someone using AI will take your job" close plus vacation footnotes. ### David Autor MIT economist; video calls him the academic voice of the American worker. Led the Census-based work showing most modern employment is "new work" created alongside technology that augments tasks — the empirical spine of the 60% claim. ### Elisha Otis 19th-century inventor of the elevator safety brake; Barnum-assisted demos made passenger elevators (and thus skyscrapers) socially viable — setting up the one Census occupation automation fully erased once cars self-leveled.