AI systems capable of performing cognitive tasks at human level or above will displace millions of knowledge workers across legal, financial, administrative, analytical, and creative professions. This displacement will be faster than any previous technological transition because it targets the cognitive labor that was supposed to be immune to automation.
The displacement will not be uniform. Routine cognitive tasks will be automated first, followed by increasingly complex reasoning and creative work. The result is not mass unemployment in the short term but a profound compression of labor value and a hollowing out of the professional middle class.