Mollick: 1990s copier repair ethnography shows why AI won't easily replace workers
emollick · x · 2026-10-06
Ethan Mollick points to a 1990s ethnography of copier repair technicians to argue that real work is complicated, improvised, and poorly documented—making it hard to replace with AI on paper. He concedes, however, that technology did eventually largely eliminate that job, hinting AI displacement comes sideways rather than by direct replication.
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