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Posted on 02/18/2026 10:07:08 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Elon Musk just identified which jobs go first, and it destroys every assumption about who’s safe.
Musk: “AI is going to take over those jobs like lightning. Anything that is digital, which is like just someone at a computer doing something.”
Not factory workers. Office workers. The people who spent decades assuming education and desk jobs meant security are actually first.
Musk: “Anything that’s physically moving atoms… those jobs will exist for a much longer time.”
Output is a file? Vulnerable. Output is physical? Protected. That’s the entire framework.
Musk: “AI is really still digital.”
AI doesn’t need a body. Doesn’t need an office. Just needs access to the same software you use. Executes faster. Never tires. Costs nothing to scale.
But it can’t weld. Can’t wire a building. Can’t fix pipes or work soil.
Musk: “Literally welding, electrical work, plumbing. Those jobs will exist for a much longer time.”
Trades aren’t the vulnerable jobs. They’re the durable ones. Physical presence, real-world adaptation, manual dexterity provide protection no digital credential offers.
Analyst, accountant, paralegal, programmer, anyone producing files and documents, automates first because digital work is exactly what AI does natively.
Person moving atoms has natural defense. Physics, unpredictable environments, material resistance create friction AI can’t scale past.
Person moving bits has nothing. No friction. No physical barrier. Just software AI already operates better than most humans.
The assumption that desk work and degrees represent safety just inverted completely. College graduate producing documents faces faster displacement than the electrician producing installations.
Society spent generations telling people trades were beneath them. Pushed everyone toward offices and screens. Turns out the people who didn’t listen built the most automation-resistant careers.
Most ironic outcome of the AI revolution. The work society treated as inferior turned out to be the work society couldn’t replace. And the work society valued most turned out to be the easiest to eliminate.
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“’Hey Help’ from the AI.”
Kindly scan the transmitter with an infrared device.
Replace...
or
Order...
I was hoping he was going to say ‘public school educator’
That is the right direction for thought.
AI and automation will have some limitations, but the things they can do, they will do extremely well. And so the world will re-shape itself to take maximum advantage of what AI can actually do, and the world will find a way to work-around the limitations of AI.
A lot of people here seem to think AI is pretty much smoke and mirrors. I am in the other camp. I think it is changing everything and doing it faster than people think. I say 5 - 10 years, and you won’t even recognize society.
“Houses will be made differently with wiring and plumbing in the parts that will click together.”
There’s Shark-Bite (which has taken a really big bite out of the plumbing part industry).
One can strip the ends of 12/3 and 14/3 cable and insert them.
Copper has a bad tendency to tarnish.
Houses are already being 3D printed with concrete walls.
Lots of videos on YouTube.
They leave gaps to install electrical wiring.
The 3D printer lays down two 3” wide by 2” thick ribbon of concrete about 8-10” apart. Leaving room to fill the cavity with insulation. Then they have to frame out the windows and doors with wood to attach the doors and windows to.
The concrete slab floor is poured first. With all the plumbing pipes in the correct places. The roof is still built out of wood trusses or framing still.
Many houses, apartments and hotels are all built in module factories now. There is one in Idaho that builds the hotel rooms for Marriott hotels in their factory. When it ships to the building site it has everything already in the module including the bed, mattress, vanity and mirror(in a box).
This means the Courtyard Marriott hotel built in Detroit is the exact same one built in Paducah or Calgary.
I’ve been reflecting on this. I was trained as a mechanical engineer. Thimgs such as machine design, mechatronics, solid mechanics, etc. require skills such as physical reasoning, knowledge and training in various subdisciplines and theories, and the ability to do research.
Most of my career required use of computers to perform the work. Networking and interpersonal skills are vital as well. Can AI do all that?
“So... AI Freepers?”
Based on some of the comments I’ve seen over the years, some people might say Freeper Intelligence is already artificial.
After a while of looking at them, AI videos get kind of boring. They don’t have the quirkiness of reality, and the ‘quirk’ is what’s really interesting about life and other people.
Ask AI.
Silly people making a fuss about things they know nothing about.
“I asked my doctor a few weeks ago what he was planning on doing when he was replaced by AI. I just got a deer in the headlights look.”
surgery, fishing or boating
Example - bookkeeping ia a science, Accounting is an art.
And I think it was Asimov who wrote a short story about a computerized society that got the election down to one voter, who represented the true undecided voter that represented the total electorate. Don't remember the ending.
It’s always people hugely invested in AI making the wild predictions. Anything to keep the bubble going.
So we can send all the H-1B visa Indians home today, right?
Actually we don’t have the technology and won’t have for 100 years if ever.
CNC is eons away from being done by AI. Probably never. That was part of my work, so I am familiar.
Cad does not know raw part geometry, only knows finished part geometry. To machine a finished part from a raw casting or forging or even a simple round steel material involves multiple cuts and tool motions, which CAD has no knowledge of.
I predict that in the future there will be a demand for non-AI certified products, with human-only input and verification/quality assurance at all stages.
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