> if you automate 99% of a job, that last 1% the human has to do is incredibly valuable because it’s bottlenecking everything else.
The author is being (intentionally) naive here.
History and current research suggest that when technology automates the vast majority of a complex job, it can lead to the "deskilling" of the human worker.
This Lancet article (published Oct 2025) discovered that doctors were found to be less adept at finding precancerous growths during colonoscopies after just three months of using an AI tool designed to spot them: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1...
And the thing is, I think the above finding is pretty intuitive.
If AI performs 99% of a radiologist's diagnostic work, the human's role will very likely be reduced to a skill that is more routine, that requires less expertise, like a final check or something - and thus commands lower wages.
Yet prices of these tests will not go down. AI and the companies that perform the test will see the rewards of eliminating these skilled jobs. The consumer will not see the savings.
Why would they go down? Once all the existing workforce is deskilled or retired there's no going back so they can jack the service price up. If it was an open platform you might have competitors spring up as a relief valve to that but the space is so regulated I don't think there's any room for that kind of platform.