Wolfe: Machines will replace white-collar knowledge workers while blue-collar craft is protected
Josh Wolfe · Josh Wolfe: Human Advantage in the World of AI · Mar 4, 2025 · at 18:11
Josh Wolfe, co-founder of Lux Capital, discusses the differing exposure of white-collar versus physical blue-collar jobs to AI and automation.
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“But interestingly, I actually think that the people whose jobs are, like, most protected in this new domain are blue-collar workers. A robot today can't really fully serve a meal, and they cannot effectively, even though every humanoid robot tries to do folding laundry, and there's still basic jobs that are not low-paying, but they're arguably safer than ever. And this ties into immigration and technology and human replacement, but people that are Doing maintenance. People that are plumbers. Many of these things are standardized systems, but it's like the old joke about the plumber that comes in and, you know, he comes in and he taps a few things and, like, suddenly the pipes are fixed. He says, you know, how much is it? It's a thousand bucks. A thousand bucks for that? He's like, it was a five dollar part. He's like, yeah, the part was five dollars, but 995 was knowing where to tap and where to put it, and so I think that there's still a lot of this, like, tacit knowledge and Craft and maintenance that is going to be protected against the rise of the machines that are going to replace most of the white collar intelligence and knowledge workers.”
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