Jeff Bezos predicts AI will create a labor shortage, not replace human workers across the economy

So Jeff Bezos, the man who built a fortune on warehouse robots and algorithmic efficiency, took to the stage at VivaTech to reassure us that AI will actually spark a labour shortage—because apparently the robots are going to get bored and quit.

This is the same Bezos whose company has shed tens of thousands of roles in the name of 'operational efficiency,' but never mind: the robots are coming for the boring jobs, leaving humans to… do the jobs that don't exist yet. It's a neat trick, positing a shortage of the very thing you're actively automating away. Perhaps the labour shortage will arrive just in time to staff the Amazon fulfilment centres of the future, where humans will compete with robots for the privilege of stacking boxes at 3am.

The logic is so exquisite it could only come from a man whose personal fortune could buy a small country. One imagines the labour shortage will be like the one we currently have for unicorn herders: technically possible, but you wouldn't bet the farm on it. Still, it's a comforting thought for those who'd rather believe in a future where we're all too busy to work than one where we're all too redundant to bother.