By Peter St Onge at Brownstone dot org.

A new study predicts that 86% of AI unemployment will be women. And not just any women: rich Democrat women.

Tragically, AI is coming for the notorious Karen who's overpaid for what she produces but still needs to see the manager.

The reason is the Industrial Revolution took jobs from people who work with their hands — routine physical work. But AI is taking routine paperwork — people who forward emails, schedule meetings, and sit on diversity committees.

Last week, think tank Brookings issued a new study estimating 37 million American workers are "highly exposed" to AI replacement.

Brookings thinks that most of those will easily transition into a different role because they have broad skill sets or they're smart.

For example, software or finance are on the firing line for AI replacement. But they'll adapt as automation creates new jobs since it raises incomes and deepens production — products get better.

But Brookings estimates there's about 6 million of those who will not adapt, primarily in clerical and administrative roles.

What's interesting is the distribution: Brookings estimates 86% are women. And they work at big organizations with lots of routine paperwork — colleges, hospitals, big companies, government.

In healthcare, for example, hundreds of thousands of workers never see a patient — they see paperwork.

It's worse with federal workers, who are also mostly women.

Going by the fact nothing got worse when DOGE fired 300,000 of them, many are useless. Just imagine how useless they'll be when AI can do their job for free.

A lot of these women may be low skill, but they're high education — and high income. Which they're about to lose. Which won't make them happy.

In a recent CNBC interview, Palantir CEO Alex Karp laid it out: "If you're going to disrupt the economic and political power of highly-educated female voters who vote Democrat while increasing the power of vocationally trained working class males…and you think that's going to work out politically, you're in an insane asylum."

So who are these soon to be jobless Karens?

A study by AI company Anthropic — of Claude fame — thinks AI could ultimately replace over 90% of tasks in administrative, clerical, and middle management. And over 80% in arts and media and law firms — don't let your kids go to Hollywood. Or become lawyers.

This sounds dire, but remember the adaption. Software, for example, has been automating for 50 years — punch-card feeders are long gone. During dot-com, website developers were supposed to be obsolete any day now, and 50 years later they're still here. Because the work got more complicated even as the basic stuff automated.

So the vast majority of that 80 to 90% will reskill, including software, finance, marketing and managers.

The problems are those clerks and admins, secretaries, sales assistants, customer service, payroll…HR. Heaven help you if you're a diversity consultant who doesn't know how to flip a burger.

I've argued that AI will be the opposite of the Industrial Revolution: Instead of replacing routine physical jobs, it replaces routine white collar jobs. With robots coming decades later since you need one AI for 8 billion people but you need 5 robots per McDonald's.

This creates a generation-long blue collar boom as automation itself makes us rich, which raises demand — and pay — for blue-collar jobs. But it will absolutely redistribute income — and power — from high-income, high-education, largely female white collar workers to the plebs.

This is terrifying for Karen — she already makes less than the plumber, she would make less than the Uber guy.

Republished from the author's Substack