A profound and potentially historic upheaval in the global labor market may soon be underway — a disruption so extensive that it could redefine the balance between human employment and technological progress. This view is advanced by Professor Ekaterina Abramova of the London Business School, who specializes in studying the intersection between emerging technologies and economic transitions. Abramova warns that the astonishing acceleration of artificial intelligence development could precipitate widespread job losses long before new employment opportunities materialize to absorb displaced workers. Such a temporal mismatch, she explains, has, throughout history, been one of the primary catalysts for social unrest, economic polarization, and large-scale political tension.
Drawing on her extensive research into technology-driven transformations, Abramova argues that the pace of AI progress over the past three years represents a dramatic departure from previous industrial revolutions. Earlier waves of mechanization — from the automation of textile mills in the late 1700s to the gradual decline of manual manufacturing at the close of the 20th century — unfolded over decades and tended to affect specific occupations or industries in isolation. By contrast, today’s AI systems, capable of performing reasoning, analysis, and creative synthesis, threaten to displace cognitive labor across numerous fields at once. As Abramova told Business Insider, “A single AI model can replace thousands of skilled knowledge workers across multiple sectors almost overnight,” encapsulating the unparalleled scale and immediacy of this change.
The magnitude of the anticipated layoffs, she predicts, will likely exceed the rate of new job creation during the next five to ten years — a situation that could become critical if aggressive retraining and reskilling initiatives are not implemented swiftly. Although precise figures remain uncertain, Abramova points to a growing number of prominent corporations that have openly attributed recent reductions in workforce to the adoption of AI-driven systems. Ironically, many of the emerging AI-related roles require advanced technical abilities or credentials that a large portion of affected employees do not currently possess. Entry-level positions such as junior software developers, data analysts, and customer-support representatives, once viewed as stable pathways into knowledge work, are already among those most at risk of automation.
Her concerns are echoed by Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard and former director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget under President Obama. Speaking recently on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Orszag suggested that the promise of AI’s extraordinary efficiency must be balanced against the potential of a large-scale employment shock. “Labor markets handle small, rapid disruptions relatively well or large, gradual ones with some adaptability,” he explained. “But they struggle profoundly when faced with large shocks occurring abruptly,” emphasizing that the speed of change may be the most destabilizing element.
Abramova underscores that the social consequences of this transformation extend far beyond statistical fluctuations in unemployment. Historically, she notes, social strain tends to arise when the velocity of economic innovation surpasses the capacity of institutions — governments, schools, and social safety networks — to safeguard those displaced by technological progress. She references several historical parallels, such as Britain’s Enclosure Acts, which expelled tens of thousands of small-scale farmers from communal lands in the 18th century, triggering riots, migrations, and long cycles of rural impoverishment. Similarly, the closure of coal mines in the 1980s decimated local economies in the United Kingdom’s mining regions, sparking years of strikes and political fracturing. These precedents illustrate how abrupt structural transformations can ignite social divisions and erode public trust when adaptation mechanisms fail to keep pace.
Opinions among business leaders remain sharply divided regarding AI’s long-term employment effects. Voices such as Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, and Jim Farley, head of Ford Motor Company, have issued strong warnings about the likelihood of mass displacement even within traditionally secure white-collar professions. By contrast, figures like Elon Musk, JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman foresee a spectrum of possible futures — from short-term disruption to eventual broad-based prosperity. Others, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Yann LeCun, the departing chief AI scientist at Meta, adopt a more optimistic stance, contending that AI will augment rather than eliminate human roles. As Huang argued during a late-October interview, companies that embrace AI and robotics first will likely achieve superior productivity and may ultimately expand their hiring as a result. He added a provocative insight: “You won’t lose your job to a robot; you’ll lose it to a person who knows how to use one,” implying that mastery of AI will become a decisive competitive advantage in the labor market.
Yet Abramova cautions that the transition, if mismanaged, could prove destabilizing on multiple fronts. Without timely intervention, society may face widening inequality, persistent unemployment for displaced workers, diminishing consumer spending power, and intensifying public resentment toward both corporations and governments. In an atmosphere of mounting discontent, leaders may even resort to heightened surveillance or restrictive policies in an attempt to maintain stability. Over time, she warns, such conditions could erode democratic norms and civic cohesion. Still, Abramova emphasizes that these negative outcomes are not inevitable. The path forward depends on policymakers’ and employers’ willingness to invest in what she terms “worker-augmenting AI” — technologies designed to complement human intelligence by automating repetitive, data-heavy tasks while preserving domains that require ethical reasoning, empathy, and creative judgment.
Achieving this balance, Abramova suggests, will require strong regulatory frameworks and incentive systems that reward businesses for deploying AI responsibly rather than merely using it to trim payrolls. Orszag concurs, cautioning that without major institutional support and long-term workforce investment, many displaced individuals risk not total unemployment but chronic underemployment — working below their skill potential and suffering prolonged economic insecurity. In short, society stands at a pivotal juncture: the same technologies that threaten to displace millions could, if guided by foresight and social responsibility, also empower a new era of human productivity and shared prosperity.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-impact-jobs-layoffs-outpace-new-jobs-social-unrest-professor-2025-12
