AI won't take your job. Not yet.

Any older millennial or young baby boomer (and all of Generation X) can remember the excitement of the World Wide Web. It was incredible to turn on your computer, wait for the satisfying buzz of the dial-up connection, and surf the web. You could buy a book on this new dot-com called Amazon, download music from Napster, and check email on AOL. To any teenager or young adult, it just seemed magical, like the world changed overnight.

Well, that was true and that was not true.

AI will continue to evolve and impact our jobs. But probably not as quickly as you think.

It was clear that music would eventually become something you downloaded rather than bought in stores. But Napster ran into legal troubles from the start and quickly fell apart. Email did become a reality (and it spawned a romantic comedy starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks that was appropriate for the era), but post offices didn't close. In fact, because of Amazon… well, you know what happened. But back then, most companies struggled to fully adopt the new technology. Snail mail remained the official way of communicating and sending documents. The “IT guy” was just that: a guy in a T-shirt and jeans who would clear the paper jam or reboot your computer. It would be more than a decade before “Chief Technical Officer” stopped sounding like a character from Star Wars.

The point is that the development of the Internet showed us its early potential, but there was also a natural resistance to a lot of change at once. Some of it is just primal instinct. As humans, we have very good reasons to go the way we already know. We go to our favorite restaurant because we know it won't disappoint us. We listen to the songs we already like. We shop in the stores for things we know we can afford. The familiar is comforting.

When it comes to AI, business leaders are unlikely to overhaul the workforce.

Resistance to change is no less pronounced in business, perhaps even more so. While there are some very worrying implications in the arts (as actors and writers unions put it in the summer of 2023), the general corporate world is unlikely to replace large parts of the workforce quickly. AI is mostly reliable at routine tasks or compiling large amounts of data, so it's true that certain types of repetitive work will increasingly be supported by AI. But the pressures on these types of jobs have always been there.

For example, I recently walked through an airport and bought a bottle of water and a magazine from a kiosk without a human interacting with me. So I'm not saying that no cashier jobs have been lost to AI. But to be fair, you can also buy snacks and soda from a vending machine. That was once someone's job, too. Jobs are constantly changing. Over time, companies are asking people to do more things that require judgment and empathy. The requirement for humans to do simple transactions or repetitive tasks has been replaced time and time again by automation of some sort.

Just because the technology is available doesn't mean it will be implemented quickly.

The increasing pace at which people adopt Technology – or any change – helps reduce the excitement (or fear) surrounding the Opportunity for change. It's good to remember this, even if you're an early adopter and embrace change. Recognize the value of the human instinct to avoid too much change at once. History has shown that AI development will happen in stops and starts, just as it was halted (or at least slowed) by the Hollywood strikes — or by the breakup of Napster in 2001. Whether you're in a leadership position making decisions about how AI will impact your business, or you're in an entry-level position and worrying about whether it will affect you, it's worth keeping perspective. This is healthy human moderation of artificial intelligence.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be willing to acknowledge that AI is here and growing. Learn new skills, including ways you can leverage your current skills using AI. In fact, working with AI can help you feel less threatened. According to one survey, 72 percent of workers who use AI said it has made them more productive. The challenge is that 60 percent of those who use AI fear it will take over their jobs, according to the same survey. But will it really take over their jobs, or just change the work they do? People spend a lot less time making photocopies than they used to. Likewise, travel agents have largely been replaced by travel websites… which are run by people.

Your job will not be replaced by AI immediately. You will adapt to a new one beforehand.

Saying that AI will completely replace humans is like saying a calculator will replace accountants. Be excited about the future, but also be guided by reality. You will not wake up one day and find that life is completely different. Change is happening faster than ever before, and yet not as fast as it seems. And in the time between then and very soon lies now. It is time to learn new skills, including AI ones, and adapt to new versions of our former jobs. We can adapt. Because we are human intelligence.