Wall Street's AI Jobs Panic Misses What's Actually Happening on Factory Floors
Deutsche Bank and economists are wringing their hands about AI killing jobs, but they're looking at the wrong end of the problem.
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I watched a Bloomberg segment yesterday where a Deutsche Bank executive and an economist took turns warning about AI eliminating jobs. Tarman from Deutsche Bank called AI the key narrative for stocks. Dambisa Moyo, who's now in the House of Lords apparently, talked about being in the early innings of a new world order where technology diminishes employment.
Look, I've heard this exact conversation before. Almost word for word. It was 2012, I was still at Kuka, and everyone was convinced collaborative robots were going to empty out every factory floor within five years.
The View from Trading Desks vs. Shop Floors
Here's the thing about financial analysts talking about automation and jobs: they're usually about three years behind what's actually happening, and simultaneously five years ahead of what's actually possible.
Bloomberg ran both these segments back to back, which tells you something about the current mood on Wall Street. AI is the story everyone wants to tell because it moves stock prices. Fair enough. That's their job.
But Moyo admitted something important that I wish more of these commentators would emphasize: there's still so much uncertainty about how AI effects will actually be felt. She's right. We don't know yet. And I'd argue the people who sound most certain are usually the ones furthest from the actual implementation.
I called my old colleague Hans at Siemens last month. He's been doing factory automation for longer than I have. I asked him how many of his customers were deploying AI systems that actually replaced human workers, not augmented them, replaced them entirely. His answer? Maybe two or three serious projects. Out of hundreds of customers.
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