I have not heard even the most enthusiastic AI booster describe net job creation as a possible outcome. If you have any details on that prediction, I'd be interested to hear what they are.

Nobody remotely believed what the printing press invention would lead to.

After all, Gutenberg had only a modest goal of printing and selling indulgences. He didn't understand what the printing press was good for, either.

Pretty much all the jobs today did not exist before the printing press that enabled them.

I mean in some countries today, the idea of universal literacy helping people is still met with skepticism by some segments of the population.

It's apparently not obvious that mode access to books , learning, and literacy will improve lives

Net job creation will be the outcome as the insane number of businesses that were once too expensive to start due to lack of knowledge labor suddenly come online.

we all be employed as hunters, gatherers or revolutionaries

I mean... you can't think of any ways that AI could actually generate new value? Or more abstractly, of a way that Jevons' paradox can't apply in the case of AI?

One wonders if a German in 1600 would have cursed the invention of the printing press. The printing press accelerated the reformation, which led to over a century of bloody religious wars. Something like a third of the German population died as a result. From the perspective of 2025, the printing press was undoubtedly positive for humanity. But millions of people suffered.

It is refreshing to hear someone mention that when discussing the printing press (however horrible it is). Most people only paint a rosy picture.

People are still engaging in religious wars. The printing press didn't change that.

Indeed, and I think this is one of the things Hazlitt mentions. After the first initial shocks, opportunities and pathways will eventually present themselves.