What do Jerome Powell and Henry Ford have in common? A recognition that labor has always been a transient force — shaped by machines, markets and management. Wall Street, for all its illusions of permanence, is no exception. With AI entering the halls of corporate banks, junior bankers are left to wonder: Are they the newest expendable cogs in finance’s vast machine?

Junior bankers today feel as if they’re being marched off a labor cliff by artificial intelligence — machines that don’t take PTO in the middle of a deal and never miss a 2 am deadline. The fear is palpable: Fewer pitch books to grind through, fewer hours to tweak models and the looming specter of irrelevance. 

The panic over AI gutting junior bankers is as old as labor itself. Just as the steam engine freed workers from drudgery, the assembly line created new industries, the computer unlocked entire careers, AI is set to redefine the value of labor. The short-term friction of labor reshuffling is real, but in the long run, innovation has always left us better off, not worse — and Wall Street’s junior ranks are unlikely to be the exception.

Modern labor economics, dating back to David Ricardo, rests on a simple principle: In the long run, labor gravitates toward maximum output with minimal input. Finance is no different. The role of the junior banker today resembles the blacksmith of the agrarian age — on the brink of transformation. 

The blacksmith who once spent 80 hours forging a single rail shoe, eventually came to produce 20 in half as much time using industrial machinery. He was no longer defined by his title but by his adaptation — evolving from a craftsman into something closer to a contemporary artist. He worked fewer hours, with greater comfort, while contributing more to GDP and expanding his own consumption.

This shift didn’t erase labor — it reallocated it, raising wages, fueling consumption and expanding the broader economy. AI is simply the next chapter of this same story.

This is not a doomsday scenario, it’s a challenge. As Jamie Dimon told Bloomberg, “Your children are going to live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology,” he said, “and literally they’ll probably be working three-and-a-half days a week.” 

You have no choice but to take Dimon seriously — the evidence is all around us. Since the Industrial Revolution, life expectancy has skyrocketed, and AI is poised to push it even higher. The 16-hour days in coal mines, cotton fields and cubicles are relics of the past. 

Our labor economy has swapped calluses for skyscrapers, and soot for Microsoft Excel. What will the next generation of banker’s trade for? The answer is uncertain, but one thing is clear: It won’t be unemployment.

Creighton Mitchell is a junior banker in Boston.