Historical technological disruptions like the shift from agricultural to industrial work (1900: 40% agriculture to today: 2%) and the widespread adoption of Excel show that job displacement predictions made before technological deployment were considered wrongly pessimistic in retrospect.
causalpending
Speaker
Brad LightcapEvidence Quote
“I mean in 1900 40% of people worked in agriculture it's 2% today. Um you know Microsoft Excel has probably been the greatest job display sort of the 20th century and if we knew a priori that Microsoft Excel was coming uh you know and everyone was kind of like fretting about it I think in retrospect we would have thought that was dumb”
Source
Sam Altman talks the NYT lawsuit, Meta's talent poaching, and Trump on AI | Interview— Hard ForkCreated: 8/11/2026, 7:06:33 AM
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