Comment: Fears about AI taking jobs are understandable - but harmful Published on: 24 February 2026 Writing for The Conversation, Abigail Marks discusses workers' fears over the threat from AI. , As a professor of the future of work, the question I get asked most often is whether AI is going to take everyone鈥檚 jobs. I hear it from students who worry that their degrees will be obsolete before they graduate. I hear it from office workers watching new tools appear in their software. And I hear it from people working in retail and logistics and hospitality and admin, who all suspect that their jobs put them . The issue has become a . And of course, I understand why people are worried. Because for a very long time, technology has been sold to employers as a way of with a smaller workforce. When new tech arrives, it often means cutting costs. So far though, AI has to mass unemployment, and society鈥檚 use of the technology is, and will probably continue to be, nuanced and complex. Yet blunt headlines declaring that 鈥淎I will take your job鈥� are hard to ignore. And they can place workers in a passive position, where they end up waiting fearfully to see whether they will be part of the technological cull. But we also need to be wary of the fear itself. For fear is not just a private and unpleasant feeling 鈥� fear changes how people behave and how they . Nor is AI-driven anxiety evenly distributed. Some professionals with stable contracts will have the luxury of treating AI as an efficiency tool, something that and speeds up routine work. But others, who work in call centres or data entry, where tasks are repetitive, measurable and tightly monitored, often see AI as something that could remove the substance of their job. For these people, the AI revolution does not feel like an upgrade, it feels like a . And this is why the perceived threat matters. Because even before jobs disappear, the fear of losing them can reshape lives. Research shows that people who believe their livelihoods are at risk are understandably less willing to . They may delay major decisions because they feels pointless or unaffordable. They may disengage from work because they assume loyalty will not be rewarded. Anxiety goes up, morale falls and the workplace becomes a site of uncertainty. And then the idea that AI will take over jobs becomes not just an economic problem but also a psychological one. For work is not simply a way to pay the bills. To many people it is a vital . And when work feels under threat, people can feel personally diminished. Transparency After all, if the tasks you have built your life around are suddenly described as something AI could do, it is hard not to infer that your efforts are (and have been) of little value; that you are replaceable and that your contribution no longer matters. This is where fear turns into alienation, and its effects move beyond the workplace. Over time, that loss of trust can harden into . Anxiety about automation can then blend into wider . And if millions of workers believe they are one software update away from redundancy, that belief can be socially destabilising. What matters then is how AI is integrated into workplaces, and whether that integration supports people鈥檚 ability to keep working on fair and predictable terms. This and the involvement of the workers themselves. Above all, it is essential to give those workers a say in how AI affects their tasks, their pace of work, and the metrics by which they are assessed. Because while AI will reshape work, the future should not be predetermined by the technology itself. And the greatest risk may not be that AI replaces everyone overnight, but that the fear of replacement becomes widespread and corrosive 鈥� damaging wellbeing, undermining dignity and . So we should absolutely take the threat of AI seriously. But we should also stop treating AI as an unstoppable force, and start treating it as something that can be shaped by society. And the next time someone asks me whether AI is going to take people鈥檚 jobs, I will still answer honestly 鈥� that without proper consideration, there is a chance that systems will be implemented which change the way we work and damage personal dignity and economic stability. But I will also try to address the more important question about what society can do to mitigate this damage 鈥� and make sure that the fear of AI doesn鈥檛 become a major crisis in itself. , Professor of the Future of Work, This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . 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