Except for one arena, that is, and it’s a pretty interesting one. Jobs where empathy and “emotional intelligence” can be considered requirements, often personal service and “high touch” interactive positions, have by and large been immune to the creeping mechanization of the workplace. And here’s the twist: most of these empathy-driven jobs are performed by women.
Nursing, primary school teaching, personal grooming – these jobs require varying levels of education and knowledge, but all have a strong caretaker component, and demand the ability to understand the unspoken or non-obvious needs of patients/students/clients/etc. We’re years – perhaps even decades – away from a machine system that can effectively take on these roles; a computer able to demonstrate sufficient empathy to take care of a crying kindergartener is clearly approaching True AI status. As a result, we appear to be heading into a future where these “pink collar” jobs – empathy-driven, largely performed by women – are the most significant set of careers without any real machine substitute, and therefore without the downward wage pressure that mechanization usually produces.

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