Is AI Really Going to Take Our Jobs?

By Brandy Lesline

It started as background noise , a headline here, a think piece there, the kind of story that feels urgent for a week and then fades into the scroll. But lately, the question has moved from the fringes of the internet into boardrooms, kitchen tables, and late-night conversations that stretch longer than anyone planned. People are genuinely worried. And honestly? They are not wrong to be. But they might be asking the question in the wrong way. The real issue is not simply whether AI will take our jobs. It is which jobs, under what conditions, and perhaps most importantly what we choose to do about it before the choice is made for us.

Let us be clear about what is already happening, because the future is not entirely hypothetical anymore. AI tools are already writing marketing copy, generating legal summaries, screening job applicants, analyzing medical images, and handling customer service queries that used to require a human being on the other end of the line. This is not science fiction. This is Tuesday. For workers in data entry, routine administrative roles, and certain corners of creative and financial services, the disruption is not looming , it has already begun landing.

And yet, history asks us to be a little more patient before we declare catastrophe. Every major technological revolution the printing press, the industrial revolution, the rise of computing , triggered the same deep anxiety. Each time, entire categories of work disappeared. Each time, new categories emerged that nobody had anticipated. The mechanization of agriculture did not permanently unemploy farmers; it eventually shifted the workforce toward manufacturing and services that did not exist a century earlier. Those who insist that AI is different, that this time the disruption will be total and irreversible, may be right. But they carry the burden of proving it, and so far that proof remains incomplete.

What makes this moment genuinely different from previous shifts, though, is the speed. A factory worker displaced by industrialization could, in theory, retrain over years or even a generation. AI is moving faster than our education systems, our labour policies, and most of our institutions can comfortably absorb. The concern is less that AI will eliminate all work and more that the transition will be brutally uneven that those with access to retraining, capital, and adaptable skills will surf the wave while everyone else gets caught underneath it.

There is also the matter of who benefits. When a company replaces a team of twenty with an AI system managed by two, the productivity gains do not automatically flow back to workers. They flow to shareholders. Without deliberate policy intervention , stronger labor protections, investment in retraining programs, and serious conversations about how AI-generated wealth gets distributed , we risk building a world where technology makes the economy richer and large segments of the population poorer at the same time. That is not a technology problem. It is a political and moral one.

None of this means individuals are powerless. The workers who will fare best in the coming decade are not necessarily the most technically skilled , they are the most adaptable. The ability to think critically, lead teams, communicate clearly, and navigate ambiguity are qualities that remain stubbornly human. AI can draft a report, but it cannot yet read the room. It can generate options, but someone still has to decide. Leaning into what makes human judgment irreplaceable is not just career advice; it is a form of survival.

So will AI take our jobs? Some of them, yes , and that deserves to be said plainly rather than wrapped in the soothing language of inevitable progress. But the fuller answer is that it depends on choices we have not yet finished making: how we train the next generation, how we regulate the technology, and whether we demand that the benefits of AI be shared broadly rather than hoarded narrowly. The machines are not coming to take our future. But we could very easily hand it to them if we are not paying attention.