The last great automation wave
Every few centuries, a technology comes along that doesn't just change what we produce — it changes who produces it. The printing press made scribes obsolete. The steam engine rewrote the countryside.
I grew up hearing stories of that second shift from people who lived it — generations who watched the rhythms of farming give way to something faster, more abstract, and ultimately unrecognizable.
We're in one of those moments again. And to understand where AI is taking us, start where the last great automation wave started: the farm.
The Great Labor Shift
For most of human history, farming was the job. 2 Then crop rotation, seed drills, and mechanical reapers started producing more food with fewer hands. 3 The surplus labor migrated — to cities, to factories, to industries that hadn't existed a generation earlier. 4 5
The near-total elimination of humanity's oldest profession. 1 And nobody starved — we produce more food today with 1% of the workforce than we did with 70%. 2 Technology didn't destroy the economy. It restructured it.
Where Did the Labor Go?
The displaced workforce didn't disappear. It moved. The pattern is the same everywhere: agriculture collapses, manufacturing rises then peaks, services absorb everything. 5 6 7 Every nation that industrialized followed this arc — UK and Sweden almost in lockstep. 2 23
Services are now the economy — in the same way farming once was. And services are exactly what AI automates.
How Long It Took
Each innovation compounded, but the full transformation from 70% to 1% played out over two hundred years.
Every previous technology on that chart required physical infrastructure — airports, cables across ocean floors. 19 AI's infrastructure is supply-side: data centers, chips, energy. But distribution is essentially free. 20 Anyone with a browser gets access. The displacement that took centuries could unfold in years.
The Productivity Miracle
How did we go from 70% on farms to 1%? Compounding productivity gains — better crops, then machines that replaced the hands entirely. 3 10
An 83-fold improvement. 11 Each innovation freed up hands. And those hands built the industrial world.
Did Workers Benefit?
Production got radically more efficient. But did the workers see the gains?
In 1700, a worker spent nearly 6 hours earning a loaf of bread. By 2020: 10 minutes. 16 22 That's not a marginal improvement — it's a transformation so total that the original problem barely exists anymore.
But compare the two side by side:
Production got 83× more efficient. The price for the worker dropped 35×. Both extraordinary — but the gap tells its own story. Where did the rest go?
Labor — once the overwhelming majority of what it cost to grow food — is now just 12%. 24 The rest is machinery, chemicals, land, and capital. The hands were replaced. The cost shifted.
Who Captured the Gains?
Output boomed. The market grew. But who benefited?
More land, better yields, and 26× more wheat than two centuries ago. 25 Global agriculture is now a $4.7 trillion industry. 26
But the farm operator's share kept shrinking.
In 1950, a farmer took home 47 cents of every dollar spent on food. By 2023: 9 cents. 27
What Comes Next
The Agricultural Revolution was centuries of displacement, stagnant wages, and radical restructuring — all while aggregate wealth soared. The economy thrived. The workers who powered the old economy bore the cost.
My family made that transition. Somewhere between then and now, someone walked off the farm and into an office. The question they asked was the same one every generation before them asked:
How do I use my time and resources to create value, so I can make a living?
The question never changed. The answer just became unrecognizable.
This is Part 1 of the series "Where AI is Taking Us." Part 2: Who is Really Selling the Shovels.
