Ali Kashani, the CEO and co-founder of Serve Robotics, says the AI debate has become too dominated by fear. In a Fortune commentary published October 10, he argues that young workers should not let hype or panic decide their future.
Kashani says he has a direct view of the tradeoffs because he runs a company that makes autonomous robots. He writes that robots are not omniscient and can hit situations they cannot handle on their own, but he also says they allow humans to do more rewarding work.
His core argument is that new technology does not simply erase work. It changes the market, raises productivity, and creates new categories of employment. He points to the historical pattern: major breakthroughs have repeatedly sparked fears of job loss, only to be followed by rising productivity and incomes, new kinds of work, and sustained GDP growth.
Kashani cites several labor-market shifts to make the case. He says that today only 2% of Americans work in agriculture, compared with a time when most people would have been subsistence farmers. He also says the total number of jobs in the U.S. increased from 44 million in 1920 to 167 million in 2024, while unemployment remained 'remarkably stable through most of the century.'
He adds that 50 million people worldwide now earn money as social media influencers, including 6.5 million who make $100,000 a year or more. His point is that work changes faster than people expect, and that new markets appear where old ones disappear.
The same logic, he says, should apply to AI. Some jobs will vanish, most will be transformed, and many more will emerge. He writes that future generations will look back at today’s work the way people now look at lamp lighters, elevator men, or 'knocker uppers' with disbelief.
Kashani also offers a concrete example from Serve Robotics. He says Charlie Snodgrass saw his delivery-driver work evaporate, then found retraining and new work with Serve in Los Angeles as a robotics field technician, or 'robot wrangler.' Kashani says the company now operates more than 2,000 robots across 20 cities, and that its human workforce grows as the fleet grows because robots still need people.
That is the part the policy crowd keeps missing. The numbers come first, and the lesson is bigger than one company or one sector: capital rewards clear rules, and free enterprise rewards the people willing to learn faster than the bureaucracy can regulate. AI will not wait for college speeches or institutional hand-wringing.
For workers and investors alike, the market has already voted. The only real question is who adapts in time to collect the gains.
