The Whole Job Fallacy
Among the most common misconceptions I hear about the threat posed by AI to jobs is what I call the Whole Job Fallacy, the idea that if automation can’t do my whole job then it can’t replace me. Tell that to the checkers at my grocery store.
See, I live in a small mountain town with only one real grocery store. They’re constantly understaffed and have to pay stipends to employees to drive up the hill (i.e., a minimum 45-minute trip up the mountain) to work. So when automated checkout lanes became available they were thrilled. Instead of needing four checkers to man four checkout lanes, they could have a single checker overseeing eight self checkout lanes. They roughly doubled their throughput and cut staffing needs by 75%.
Notably, the self-checkout machines can’t do the whole job of a checker. A human is still needed to check IDs for alcohol purchases, sell cigarettes and stamps, and help confused customers. But the machines can do enough of the job that only one human is needed to the work of what was previously four. The other three people had to look for new jobs.
Labor economists break jobs down into tasks and then look at what percentage of the tasks comprising a job can be automated. They then use that percentage to predict how susceptible that type of job is to automation. But what they fail to take into account is the fact that lots of tasks that cannot be automated can be done by just about anybody.
I recently wrote about using an AI assistant to help me diagnose a problem with the water filtration system in my house. In that case, there were lots of tasks involved that couldn’t be automated: physically getting into the mechanical room to observe the problem, moving a storage shelf out of the way to access the beeping equipment, pushing the reset button to stop the beeping, etc. Only a small percentage of the tasks involved, let’s say 10%, were able to be automated, but they were the ones that would have otherwise required a specialist: identifying the problematic piece of equipment, understanding what the warning meant, knowing how to dismiss it, and prescribing a course of action.
I was able to perform about 90% of the tasks myself, even though I’m completely unskilled as a plumber. And notably, I didn’t pay anyone to perform those tasks. AI performed 10% of the tasks but it enabled me to complete 100% of the job myself. Labor economists would say that particular job is only 10% exposed to replacement by automation, but I’d say it’s 100%.
My point is simple: the fact that AI can’t do 100% of the tasks in your job—your whole job—doesn’t mean you won’t lose your job to AI. Plan accordingly.