Usman Salis
The fear that AI will wipe out millions of jobs has become a common talking point. In a recent tweet, he suggested that AI will automate tasks, not jobs—and that society will keep raising the bar for what meaningful work looks like. It's a perspective rooted in history: technology has always reshaped labor without making humans obsolete.
From Telegram Clerks to Tech Workers
But Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box and a leading voice in Silicon Valley, offers a different view. A century ago, telegram clerks, typists, and telephone operators were essential to communication. Those specific jobs vanished as technology progressed, but the work itself didn't disappear—it just transformed into roles like customer support, data entry, and digital communications. As Levie puts it, "Today's jobs are tomorrow's tasks." AI is simply the latest chapter in this ongoing story.
Knowledge Work Gets Its Turn
For a long time, automation mostly impacted manual or repetitive work. Now AI is moving into knowledge work—writing reports, summarizing documents, generating marketing copy, even coding. Large language models like GPT-4, Gemini, and Claude are changing what white-collar productivity means. But knowledge workers aren't becoming obsolete. Instead, their roles are shifting:
- AI takes over repetitive, data-heavy tasks, freeing people for strategic thinking
- Humans focus on creativity, leadership, and critical problem-solving—areas where context and judgment still matter
- Collaborating with AI becomes a core skill, much like adapting to computers or the internet once was
This mirrors past industrial shifts: automation boosted efficiency but pushed humans toward oversight, design, and innovation.
Levie points out something important: automation doesn't just change what we do—it raises expectations for what good work looks like. Professionals are now expected to produce more, faster, and with greater precision, often using AI as a tool. Writers generate content informed by analytics. Designers prototype faster with AI image tools. Developers build complex systems using AI-assisted coding. In each case, AI doesn't replace human skill—it amplifies it. And as these tools become standard, the bar for human contribution naturally rises.
The most valuable workers in the AI era will be those who use AI to boost their impact, not fight against it. AI handles time-consuming, detail-oriented work while humans provide judgment, emotional intelligence, and strategic insight. This hybrid model is already taking shape across law, finance, design, and education. It's not the end of work—just a redefinition of it.
Usman Salis
