TL;DR

Analysis of millions of job adverts shows AI-using roles in coding pay more than non-AI equivalents, while copywriting jobs requiring AI skills pay less. The Jevons paradox suggests automation could actually increase demand for some professions if prices fall enough.

Beyond Simple Displacement

Research by Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo found that half of employment growth between 1980 and 2007 occurred in occupations with entirely new job titles—roles that couldn’t have been imagined a decade earlier.

Bouke Klein Teeselink, assistant professor at King’s College London, told the Financial Times: “If we only look at the displacement side, we’re going to miss a lot of what’s going on.”

The Jevons Paradox Applied

When automation reduces production costs, prices fall. If prices fall enough, demand can increase so much that employment actually grows. Historical examples include coal becoming cheaper leading to more use cases, not less coal mining.

Consider interior design: many people have latent demand for professional help but find it unaffordable. If AI dropped the price substantially, total employment in the field could rise—provided human tasks remain valuable.

Salary Patterns Reveal Impact

FT analysis of Lightcast job postings found a consistent pattern:

• Software and quantitative jobs requiring generative AI skills pay more than those that don’t
• Copywriting and editing jobs asking for AI skills pay less than those that don’t

This suggests that in coding, writing code was often a routine bottleneck—automate it and developers can produce more high-value work. In copywriting, producing words was the core job, and AI makes the role smaller and lower-skilled.

New Jobs, Old Concerns

A growing segment of low-paid jobs involves “writing for AI”—training and evaluating chatbot outputs. These positions are created by AI but have an ironic purpose: improving systems that will eventually automate the skills of those performing the work.

Klein Teeselink’s research suggests what matters is whether AI automates expert tasks or routine tasks within a job—the consequences differ significantly.