What is common in Jerome Powell and Henry Ford? A belief that labor has always been a transient force – has been shaped by machines, markets and management. Wall Street, for the illusion of durability for all its illusion, is no exception. With AI corporate banks enter the hall, junior bankers are left to surprise: are they the newest costable cogs in the huge machine of finance?
Junior bankers today feel as if they are marching with artificial intelligence – a labor cliff by machines, who do not take PTO in the middle of a deal and never miss the deadline of 2 pm. The fear is clear: to grind the books of low pitch, luxurious audiences of low hours and irrelevance to make the model Twickery.
AI Gating Junior Bankers are nervous as labor. The way the steam engine freed workers from drugs, the assembly line created new industries, the computer unlocked the entire career, AI is ready to redefine the value of labor. The short-term friction of the labor reshuffle is real, but in the long run, innovation has always left us better, not worse-and Wall Street’s junior rank is unlikely to be exception.
Modern labor economics, dating back to David Ricardo, rests on a simple principle: in the long run, the labor moves towards maximum production with minimal input. Finance is no different. The role of a junior banker is similar to the blacksmith of the Agriculture Age today – on the verge of change.
The blacksmith that once spends 80 hours to make the same rail shoe, eventually came to produce 20 out of 20 using industrial machinery. He was now defined by his adaptation not from his title – to develop in some close to a contemporary artist from a craftsman. He worked less hours, with more comfort, contributed more to GDP and expanded his own consumption.
This change did not eradicate labor – it rebuilt it, increased wages, promoted consumption and expanded a comprehensive economy. AI is just the next chapter of this story.
It is not a holocaust day, it is a challenge. As Jamie Dimon Told Bloomberg“Your children are up to 100 and do not have cancer due to technology,” he said, “and literally they will probably work for three and a half days a week.”
You have no option but to take Dimon seriously – the evidence is around us. Since the industrial revolution, the life expectancy has skyrocketed, and AI is ready to push it even more. Coal mines, cotton fields and cubals have the remains of the past on 16 hours.
Our labor economy has swapped calluses for skyscrapers, and soot for Microsoft Excel. What will happen for the next generation of banker’s business? The answer is uncertain, but one thing is clear: it will not be unemployment.
Creighton Mitchell is a junior banker in Boston.
