Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was the iconic Smart Guy but apparently he got one really important thing wrong.

At Freethink, Louis Anslow tells us that Einstein believed that automation caused the Great Depression (1929–1939):

According to my conviction, it cannot be doubted that the severe economic depression is to be traced back for the most part to internal economic causes: the improvement in the apparatus of production through technical invention and organization has decreased the need for human labor, and thereby caused the elimination of a part of labor from the economic circuit and thereby caused a progressive decrease in the purchasing power of the consumer.

“Albert Einstein said automation caused the Great Depression. It didn’t,” July 2, 2025

His view probably sounded convincing and it has become a mantra of the AI commentariat. But, speaking at our Walter Bradley Center launch in 2019, one of our fine writers, Jay Richards, noted that things never really happen that way:

I’ve summarized about twenty-five books that have been written in the last three years. And, if you notice something, they share a fundamental assumption: that machines are capable of replacing us…

At the time of the American revolution, he reminded the audience, 95% of the population lived and worked on farms because they had to. Today, about 1 percent do. “So does that mean that 94% of the population is unemployed? Of course not!” He agrees that there will be displacement and disruption as mechanization gives us resources to create new and different jobs: “Anything that can get automated will get automated. That’s a really good rule of thumb.”

But what can’t be automated? “Creative freedom,” for one thing.

“Jay Richards: Creative Freedom, Not Robots, Is the Future of Work” April 18, 2019

What that means, in concrete terms, is that as automation created ever more desk jobs, new jobs like fitness coach, nutritionist, bicycle shop owner, and wilderness adventure marketer, to name a few, proliferated. People remain employed but they now do different things.

A vested interest in AI unemployment claims?

Also, as technology consultant Jeffrey Funk has noted here at Mind Matters News, the AI industry has a vested interest in attributing unemployment to the relentless onward march of AI:

The easiest way to persuade investors that you are proficient in AI is to claim that your announced layoffs, or at least your lack of hiring, are because you are so good at implementing AI. In reality, a lack of demand is usually the reason for layoffs or not hiring. And even if you later retract those claims, investors will rarely penalize you to the extent that they previously rewarded you for the announcements of layoffs.

“AI Productivity Hype: The New “Cargo Cult Science”?” June 18, 2025

AL changes a lot of things but it is not replacing us.