Read enough headlines about artificial intelligence and you can be excused for thinking that we’re headed for a dystopian future ruled by AI-powered robot overlords. Mass unemployment, including people being forced to train their robot replacements to get that last paycheck, seems to be a common theme in the latest dire forecasts.

Don’t panic. It is helpful to look to history because we’ve gone through these technology-will-destroy-jobs cycles before, and we can see familiar patterns.

Historically, new technologies have transformed the economy in disruptive but positive ways. While some jobs do go away, they tend to be the ones involving manual labor and drudgery. What’s more, new technology creates new opportunities, even whole new industries.

AI is a catch-all term. It generally refer

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