Capitalism is the driver pushing businesses to endlessly chase efficiency and growth. While it is the current cause casting so much uncertainty on human job prospects, I think that ultimately it will help produce the cure. In a market economy, it is entirely logical for businesses to lower costs and reduce profit. There is no inherent requirement to treat people well unless the market demands it.
For a long period of time, market forces alone defined efficiency. The “Invisible Hand” of people acting in their own self-interest produced positive outcomes. The wasn’t any need or opportunity for businesses to optimize beyond human nature mixed with supply and demand.
Starting with railroads, the emergence of larger and larger companies changed the equation. Market forces alone were no longer enough. The growth in business size catalyzed the formation of the managerial class known as “The Visible Hand”. Managers could actively guide productivity at large companies and produce more value than market forces alone. The key here is that middle management only has the potential to provide more efficiency once a business is large enough.
AI Agents could spawn the emergence of the Second Visible Hand by creating a class of workers who orchestrate their behavior. These orchestrators will drive more productivity than agents alone, especially as the sheer scale of agents increases. While the managerial class was concentrated within very large organizations, that won’t necessarily be the case with AI orchestrators. Businesses of all human sizes will need this capability. Smaller companies might even need the role more as they leverage the asymmetric property of AI systems. So, this could mean that the distribution of workers changes. Very large companies may shrink in people size while many more small companies grow.
As with most things AI, no one really knows. The possibility of people playing an active, symbiotic role with AI makes me hopeful for our future.