The writer is a professor at Vanderbilt University, a fellow of the Kresge Foundation and author of ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’
Ever since generative AI burst on to the scene, people have been writing the collective obituary for the creative class. Why would we need musicians, artists, designers, programmers or writers when a machine can do it?
One recent study appears to provide fresh evidence for the prosecution. It cites the loss of more than 200,000 jobs in media, film and the arts over the past four years. But those losses are not attributable to AI alone. They also reflect the post-pandemic streaming contraction, the lingering effects of the 2023 Hollywood strikes, and the movement of production overseas.
This is not the first time technology has upended work. Manufacturing was once the primary engine of advanced economies. Today, workers in production occupations account for just five per cent of the US workforce. As machines have taken on more physical tasks, the nature of work has shifted towards knowledge, ideas and creativity.
The rise of the creative class was itself a product of that transformation. Made up of scientists and engineers, technologists and designers, doctors and lawyers, managers and entrepreneurs, educators, artists, writers and musicians, this class has grown from about 10 per cent of the US workforce in 1900 to more than 70mn workers today, or roughly 45 per cent of the workforce.
A remarkable new study drawing on Swedish employment data shows how technological change reshapes work. Occupations created directly by new technologies, such as punch-card operators and computer programmers, tend to remain small and unstable, and many shrink or disappear. Long-established ones are far more durable — more than 70 per cent of workers today are employed in occupations that existed in the late 19th century. Rather than eliminating these occupations, technology has transformed them.
AI is likely to reshape creative class work in a similar way. As it takes over more routine cognitive work, the distinctly human capabilities of creativity, judgment, leadership and social intelligence will become more important.
This shift is already playing out in professional services. A recent Stanford study finds that young workers aged 22 to 25 are being hired at lower rates in occupations most exposed to AI. But elite law, consulting and accounting firms continue to hire young people. Instead of hiring them primarily to grind through research and analysis, their leaders tell me they are increasingly looking for people who can understand clients, build relationships, win business, lead teams and ultimately become the firms’ senior leaders.
An even more revealing window into how AI is likely to reshape work comes from digital creators — people who use digital platforms to turn their creativity into audiences, enterprises and income. The success of social media micro-dramas, made by small teams of creators including Hollywood veterans, highlights the growing importance of this model. AI will enable more individuals and small teams to do work that once required large organisations.
The skills creators rely on point to another part of this future. Analysis of more than 500 occupations found that the skills creators use most closely match those of actors, bartenders, hairdressers and personal coaches — occupations which carry a charisma premium, rewarding personality, trust and human connection.
But this shift is far from benign. The rise of social media has put a premium on physical attractiveness over substance — on how people look and present themselves rather than what they know, create or accomplish. AI is likely to accentuate this dynamic.
An even larger danger is inequality. We have seen the rise of a superstar economy in which a small number of people at the top capture a disproportionate share of the rewards. For all the attention paid to superstar creators like MrBeast, Charli D’Amelio, and KSI, who have tens or even hundreds of millions of followers and make millions of dollars, just 2 per cent of creators make $100,000 or more a year, while roughly four in five earn less than $10,000 and nearly 40 per cent earn nothing. Left unchecked, AI is likely to extend this winner-take-all dynamic across more of the economy.
Yet none of this is inevitable. The most successful places and organisations are those that harness the creativity of the greatest number of people. AI has the potential to give far more people the tools to develop their creativity and put it to productive use.
The task, therefore, is not to protect the creative class from AI, but to use the technology to unleash the distinctively human creativity that lies deep within all of us.