Sep 15, 2026 · 32 min · 8 segments
Tim Hwang is joined by FAI Non-Resident Senior Fellow Sam Manning to talk about what we know (and mostly what we don’t) about how AI is impacting jobs. We cover: explaining why AI hasn’t had a massive…
Sam ManningGuest
Tim HwangHost
You know, maybe that's like one reason why it's slower, you know, even even with like new job entrance, right? Like the data point you put out a little bit earlier.
It's kind of like, why is the effect that small? Like, let's just assume for a moment that it is 100% AI related.
And I guess I'm curious, like in your world, among the people that you talk to, like what are the dominant hypotheses? Like what are people doing to kind of explain not AI's effect, but actually, in fact, it's like lack of effect, which really seems to be the big question that's floating here.
So I think there's probably a few different explanations, and it's hard to know exactly what's driving things.
I learned how to write code for years, and they're just so much better than I am.
When you're a big... firm that employs lots of people and you have hundreds of thousands of customers or something handing over your whatever it is, whatever sort of internal system you're relying on entirely to these systems and fully automating jobs comes with a cost because of these sort of the last nines of the reliability on a given sort of long horizon task.
And I think this we're in a period where firms are like still sort of figuring out how to integrate these things, how to reorganize around them, how much they should be firing people versus like slowing down their hiring versus hiring in different places, how much they should be entirely changing their sort
We don't even know how to like metabolize the technology is kind of what you're saying.
Like, I think there's a lot of inertia in how businesses operate, where consumer demand is, you know, and I think it will continue to change over time, but maybe just at a much more gradual rate than the rate of, you know, the pace of increase in the technology.
I love the idea that the shock absorber of the American economy is a guy that works at a firm you've never heard of, who's been there for like 30 years, none of his knowledge is documented.
And he will eventually get replaced, but he is just like this bedrock that prevents the economy from just going like, one way or the other way really, really quickly.
You know, maybe that's like one reason why it's slower, you know, even even with like new job entrance, right? Like the data point you put out a little bit earlier.
It's kind of like, why is the effect that small? Like, let's just assume for a moment that it is 100% AI related.
And I guess I'm curious, like in your world, among the people that you talk to, like what are the dominant hypotheses? Like what are people doing to kind of explain not AI's effect, but actually, in fact, it's like lack of effect, which really seems to be the big question that's floating here.
So I think there's probably a few different explanations, and it's hard to know exactly what's driving things.
I learned how to write code for years, and they're just so much better than I am.
When you're a big... firm that employs lots of people and you have hundreds of thousands of customers or something handing over your whatever it is, whatever sort of internal system you're relying on entirely to these systems and fully automating jobs comes with a cost because of these sort of the last nines of the reliability on a given sort of long horizon task.
And I think this we're in a period where firms are like still sort of figuring out how to integrate these things, how to reorganize around them, how much they should be firing people versus like slowing down their hiring versus hiring in different places, how much they should be entirely changing their sort
We don't even know how to like metabolize the technology is kind of what you're saying.
Like, I think there's a lot of inertia in how businesses operate, where consumer demand is, you know, and I think it will continue to change over time, but maybe just at a much more gradual rate than the rate of, you know, the pace of increase in the technology.
I love the idea that the shock absorber of the American economy is a guy that works at a firm you've never heard of, who's been there for like 30 years, none of his knowledge is documented.
And he will eventually get replaced, but he is just like this bedrock that prevents the economy from just going like, one way or the other way really, really quickly.
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