What can history tell us about AI?

As the AI era unfolds around us, historians reflect on lessons learned from the rollout of the internet and other technological revolutions.

In an essay posted to X on February 10, artificial intelligence entrepreneur Matt Shumer put it bluntly: “I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job.”

Shumer’s words, which have racked up 86 million views to date, rattled the nerves of an already-rattled public—and fueled fear for what the future may hold as the AI revolution threatens to disrupt work and ignite or topple the economy.

According to historians, anxieties like these have surfaced during all previous technological revolutions, from the assembly line that altered manufacturing to the trains, cars, and airplanes that shortened travel times to the internet that put information at our fingertips.

One notable difference with AI is the unprecedented speed at which the technology is advancing, with newer tools such as Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 enabling users to write complex computer code, analyze data, or generate reports in a matter of seconds, or even engage in several tasks at once through a process called multi-agent teaming.

Below, two political economy historians, Louis Hyman and Angus Burgin, offer perspective on the AI-fueled shift we are experiencing and the concerns it sparks.

Hyman specializes in labor, capitalism, and the changing nature of work in the United States and has authored or edited five books on the history of American capitalism, including Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary (Viking, 2018). Burgin focuses on intellectual history and the political economy of technology in the US.

The separate conversations, combined and edited for flow and clarity, appear below:

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