Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI

The optimist's case, made properly. Smith walks through comparative advantage — the two-century-old idea that trade pays even when one side is better at everything — and applies it to a world where AI outperforms humans at every task. As long as compute, energy, and time are scarce, it can still pay to leave some work to humans, exactly as a busy expert profitably delegates work they would do better themselves. He is candid about the conditions: the argument bends if AI's costs collapse toward zero, and wages could be high while inequality still explodes.

Read it before forming an opinion on "AI takes all the jobs" — not because it settles the question, but because it is the cleanest tour of the economic machinery every serious position has to engage. Written for a general reader, with the classic thought experiments spelled out. Krier's Cyborg Era essay is the natural next step: same machinery, more guarded conclusions.