Can US manufacturing turnaround continue with AI job push?

00:00 Speaker A

The president is really focused on bringing manufacturing back to this country. I’ve been making a lot of announcements in this country about getting overseas companies like Taiwan Semiconductor construction facilities to announce their new production. But if these trade deals fail completely after these tariff decisions, can the revival in U.S. manufacturing continue?

00:23 Speaker B

It will be high-tech manufacturing, Brian. Yes, I think semiconductors under the chip law will continue to create artificial intelligence, data storage. Yes, there are huge investments there. But no, low-tech manufacturing, we will not bring back those jobs. That’s where things happen. Frankly, you’re focusing on the wrong sector of the economy. We are a service economy. Manufacturing accounts for 8% of the nation’s jobs; Similar to agriculture in the 1950s, perhaps this decline continues further. So I think you should focus on high-tech production, but this will be highly automated with a small number of employees. It doesn’t add up to much of your work. So the question is; Where will the jobs come from? And then you get to white-collar jobs and AI, and it’s a huge problem. This has not been resolved yet. And frankly, I think the best hope for the United States is entrepreneurship, where we dominate the world through innovation and continue to do so. We’re clearly dominating AI, but I think those opportunities are where companies will focus and where the new business will be.

01:21 Speaker A

How worried are you that AI will really take the job market by storm? Every day we get a new update from Claude. OpenAI is still out there trying to raise tons of money. Artificial intelligence is getting more powerful, and human workers don’t seem to be getting any more powerful either. Their power is decreasing.

01:43 Speaker B

I think this is true. And it’s not just human workers. In other words, people who graduate from school and get an MBA have difficulty finding a job. In other words, employment rates at law firms, brokerage firms and investment banks are falling rapidly. So the question is: Where do young talented youngsters start these days? This is a big problem. And I think you’ll see them focus more on entrepreneurship, building companies. This is a good thing because everyone thinks of AI as efficiency. I think it’s table stakes. I think you have to do that to stay equal. If you want to move forward, you must understand how AI can create a completely new business model, as Mag 7 did 30 years ago. You create new business models and you become the winner. That’s where the opportunities are. As far as I can see, this is where the jobs will be for creative, innovative people.