A labor economist explains why AI won't take your job

**Casey Newton** (0:00)
If AI wiped out millions of jobs, how should our government respond? Labor economist Kathryn Anne Edwards has some great ideas about what to do, and says we shouldn't wait to get started until an AI jobs apocalypse. That's this week on Platformer. This podcast is brought to you by Atlassian Rovo, the AI that takes your team from AI novice to AI native.
Welcome to Platformer, I'm Casey Newton. This week on the show, Labor Economist and Bloomberg Opinion writer, Kathryn Anne Edwards, joins us to discuss the current state of the US economy and what we know, if anything, about early signs of AI disruption. It's a really great conversation. I think you're going to learn a lot from it. First, though, as always, we begin by checking in on the state of AI and jobs, and that means it's time to bring in Platformer fellow and Gen Z AI correspondent, Ella Markianos.
Hey, Ella.

**Ella Markianos** (1:12)
Hi.

**Casey Newton** (1:13)
How are you this week?

**Ella Markianos** (1:15)
I'm doing great. I just turned 24, which is very exciting.

**Casey Newton** (1:19)
Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Exciting times.

**Ella Markianos** (1:23)
Yeah, I'm advancing in the years. You know, like in a year or two, you might need to replace me with a Gen Alpha AI correspondent. As I become like washed, as we're all saying now.

**Casey Newton** (1:36)
How old is the oldest Gen Alpha? Like are they eligible to get a work permit?

**Ella Markianos** (1:41)
My memory is like perhaps 16, but I could be totally off base.

**Casey Newton** (1:48)
All right. But they're definitely getting close if they're not there already. So I'll have to start looking into that. But in the meantime, you are in your absolute prime, and I'm hoping you have another one of your fascinating stories about the labor market to share with us this week.

**Ella Markianos** (2:08)
Yeah. So I have something.
Normally, the statistics I look at with jobs are kind of depressing. Thankfully, I have some good news for at least some people this week, which is that people making chips. Good news for the employees of both TSMC and Samsung. Basically, for the past few weeks, there has been a big issue where Samsung's labor union was threatening to go on strike because Samsung and its union couldn't agree on a pay deal. But Samsung has finally agreed on a deal which is increasing bonuses for all employees and their chip-making group is getting an average $340,000 bonus.

**Casey Newton** (2:58)
Wow.

**Ella Markianos** (2:59)
Which is such a wild amount of money. Yeah.
And simultaneously, TSMC, also a big, yeah, one of the biggest chip makers in the world, is giving employees a 30 percent year over year increase in their profit sharing bonuses.

**Casey Newton** (3:19)
Okay.

**Ella Markianos** (3:19)
Which is roughly in line with how they've kind of increased profit sharing relative to revenue over time, but it is notable that it's timed at the same time as this chip making development at Samsung.

**Casey Newton** (3:35)
Yeah. Well, so let's get into some of the details here. In the Samsung case, you say that they were getting ready to go on strike.
What was behind the frustration there? Is this a case of, hey, ever since the AI boom started, you all have been printing money and you're not sharing that with us, and we want our share?

**Ella Markianos** (3:55)
That was, yeah, that was basically the situation there.
Currently, Samsung is one of the most profitable companies in the world. It's making hundreds of, in Korean won, which is how a lot of this is measured, obviously, because it's making hundreds of trillions of won profit, which is, that's hundreds of billions of dollars, unless my mental calculation right now is totally messed up. They're in the top five most profitable companies in the world, and right now, they're getting 7.3 trillion won in profit from what you would think of as their classic business, which is selling devices, like phones and TVs. They're getting 310 trillion won in profit, so proportionately way more, and huge increases year over year in their semiconductors unit where they're selling chips.

**Casey Newton** (4:53)
So basically, Samsung has become a chip maker with a hobby in making Galaxy phones that sometimes explode on airplanes.

**Ella Markianos** (5:02)
Yeah.
This is happening with a lot of companies. It still feels bizarre at Worlds to me. I really think of Samsung as a phone company.

**Casey Newton** (5:15)
Right. But things have changed, and now workers are saying, like, we're not going to come in and make chips for you unless you give us a big pay raise.