The statement that AI can automate ~50% of white-collar tasks is too high, but even if it was right, the conclusion is wrong. Here is why economics is necessary for the conversation about AI. A job is a bundle of tasks. Automating some tasks makes the non-automatable tasks *more* valuable. This can lead labor income to rise rather than fall. All of this is worked out beautifully in this excellent paper by @joshgans and @avicgoldfarb.