Ask A Genius 1453: Jobs AI Cannot Replace: Human Touch, Artisanal Work, and Economic Adaptation
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/07/15
Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen explore which human roles are safest from AI disruption. They discuss the enduring power of relationships, artisanal craftsmanship, the adult industry, and elite service roles. Economic systems may evolve to sustain human livelihoods, valuing realness, consumer data, and the “human of the gaps” in an AI-driven world.
Rick Rosner: Another quick topic: five or ten years ago, people were being told to go into coding because it was supposedly the safest job—immune to AI. That turned out to be terrible advice. We could talk about what fields are safe from AI. I have a couple of ideas off the top of my head. One isn’t technically a job, but it supports billions of people: being a spouse or partner.
People who go to Hollywood often find that beauty alone isn’t enough to guarantee success in the entertainment industry. However, in one-on-one relationships, beauty—mostly external, sometimes internal—is powerful. Being beautiful might not land you a starring role, but it can still win over an individual partner.
That’s a space where AI isn’t yet replacing people the way it is in, say, teleprompter work. Carole told me AI is already damaging that industry. But AI’s inroads into the partner market—via robot girlfriends—are still relatively minor.
Robot girlfriends aren’t yet convincing. The AI-only versions—without physical bodies—exist only on screens. That’s still far enough away that if you want to make yourself attractive and find a partner, you still can. Or you can just be yourself and be a kind, decent person. That still works too.
Then there’s the adult industry. It’s a sleazy extension of the same idea, but it is economically real. OnlyFans currently has about 1.1 million content creators worldwide. Coincidentally, that’s roughly the same number as licensed physicians in the U.S., and more than the number of active-duty police officers. It is a massive industry.
AI is making huge inroads into that space, but I believe humans will still be in demand. One reason: porn is often lazy. The quality bar is low. A Marvel movie might require 10,000 people. A porn video might require two.
And people like the idea that a real person put themselves on camera. So that’s a field that might resist full automation for longer.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Do you have any non-sleazy fields in mind where people can still thrive?
Rosner: There’s always artisanal work—human-made, one-of-a-kind items. Even if AI can do something better, humans can frame their work as “the best humans can do.” There’s an appeal to that. You can say, “Don’t you want to support people? Buy my stuff.” So there’s an artisanal angle. Humans may always find the gaps.
You’ve mentioned the “God of the gaps.” In this case, it’s more like the “human of the gaps.” The Turing Test taught us something: there is no single, definitive test. There is no one moment of realization.
You watch a video once—maybe it looks real. Second time, you have doubts. Third, fourth, fifth time—you start to realize it is AI-generated. So the Turing Test becomes cumulative.
I found three definite instances of AI-generated nonsense in this. It’s not real. So we are constantly running the Turing Test now—or we will be. Since we’ll constantly be testing for AI, we’ll also become better at recognizing its “smell.”
We’ll start to say, “This stinks of AI.” And we’ll reject it. We’ll look for human-made products because they don’t carry that synthetic, generated feel.
Of course, AI will keep incorporating human elements. Over time, it will get better at what it’s not currently good at. But humans will still find ways to occupy gaps—to create artisanal products that AI cannot replicate well.
So you’ve got artisans. Then you’ve got service to the ultra-wealthy. It will probably become—or maybe already is—a status symbol to have humans do for you what most people rely on AI or robots to do. Serving rich people will remain a job.
And then there will be economic systems created just to keep people paid—because if people don’t have money, the economy collapses. AI will still need a functioning human economy for at least a century. Humans and AI will both depend on that order and structure.
So we’ll create ways to keep money circulating, even when the labor being paid for is no longer essential in an AI-dominant world.
I also imagine we may end up in an Idiocracy-style model. The movie does not show this exactly, but if you think about it, people might eventually get paid just for existing. Rich people will need poor people to have money so they can continue selling them goods.
One example: people may get paid for their consumer preferences. Right now, you can buy ridiculously cheap products on Temu or Alibaba—Chinese platforms that aggregate goods from different manufacturers. You can get a $3 bikini or a rhinestone brooch for $3 that would cost $12 in the U.S.—and be lower in quality.
The reason you can buy something that cheap is not just low manufacturing costs—it’s likely also due to Chinese government subsidies. China wants to dominate global markets, so it’s worth it for them to subsidize products and gather data from your purchasing behavior.
Part of that discount might reflect the value of your data.
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