Overview of Working through it: the AI jobs boom dawns
This episode of The Intelligence focuses first on how AI is reshaping the labor market—not through a mass jobs apocalypse, but through a boom in new roles tied to data centers, infrastructure, and AI-adjacent white-collar work. It then turns to two other stories: China’s stubborn food-safety problem, illustrated by cabbages dipped in formaldehyde, and the surprisingly lucrative illegal trade in queen ants, driven by the global ant-keeping hobby.
The AI jobs boom: what the data actually shows
The Economist’s analysis argues that fears of AI causing widespread unemployment are overstated, at least for now.
Key findings
- U.S. job growth remains strong, with 162,000 jobs added in August and unemployment still low.
- The podcast says AI-related layoffs, while real, are small relative to overall labor-market churn.
- The broader effect of AI appears to be job creation as well as job displacement.
Where the new jobs are coming from
The biggest gains are linked to the physical build-out of AI:
- Data centers
- Chips and hardware
- Construction and maintenance
- Cooling, power, and server operations
The episode estimates roughly:
- 350,000 jobs created in America from the infrastructure/data-center boom
- 750,000 jobs added in AI-adjacent professional fields since 2023
- About 1 million total jobs plausibly created by the AI boom overall
Jobs seeing growth, not collapse
Even in occupations often thought to be vulnerable, the evidence is mixed:
- Paralegals
- Financial analysts
- Translators
These roles are not disappearing en masse. Instead, AI is often making workers more productive, lowering costs, and increasing demand for their services.
Sectors to watch
Some occupations are showing weaker growth:
- Customer service representatives
- Office and administrative assistants
The episode notes that these trends predate 2023, but AI may be accelerating the slowdown.
Main takeaway
The labor-market effect of AI looks less like a universal wipeout and more like a general-purpose technology—similar to the internet, computers, and electrification—creating new classes of work even as it changes or eliminates others.
China’s food-safety crisis: why it keeps happening
The second segment covers a viral scandal in China involving cabbages dipped in formaldehyde to keep them looking fresh.
What happened
- A Chinese blogger posted videos showing truckers in Kangbao, near Beijing, submerging harvested cabbages in formaldehyde.
- Three people have been detained on criminal charges.
- Authorities set up emergency checkpoints to test cabbages leaving the area.
Why it matters
Formaldehyde can cause cancer, and the scandal caused panic both inside China and in countries that import Chinese produce.
Why food safety is still such a problem
The episode points to structural reasons:
- China’s food system is huge and fragmented
- It includes:
- 160 million small farmers
- countless traders, truckers, and logistics firms
- many small markets and restaurants
- That makes enforcement difficult and incentives messy
What the government is doing
China has tried several fixes:
- Live-streamed restaurant kitchens
- Product traceability systems
- Refrigerated transport and storage
But these measures raise costs, and many consumers or businesses are unwilling or unable to pay more.
Likely outcome
The segment suggests that this scandal, like previous ones, will probably lead to:
- a few scapegoats
- local pressure
- then a return to business as usual
The deeper issue—corner-cutting and weak enforcement in a vast system—is much harder to solve.
The ant-smuggling story: a bizarre new black market
The final segment covers the trafficking of queen ants, especially from Kenya.
What was found
- Police at Nairobi airport discovered more than 2,000 queen ants
- They were packed in tiny plastic tubes with damp cotton to keep them alive
- Their destination was China
Why people want ants
Ant-keeping has become a global hobby, especially since the pandemic:
- People enjoy watching ant colonies build, forage, and interact
- Social media and YouTube channels have turned it into a mainstream niche
- Rare ants can fetch up to $200 each on the black market
Why Kenya is a hotspot
- It has a rich supply of exotic ant species
- It already has established wildlife-smuggling routes
Why this is ecologically serious
Even though ants seem small, removing queen ants can devastate colonies:
- Queens are the reproductive core of the colony
- Their loss can wipe out thousands of workers and future generations
- These ants play important roles in savanna ecosystems, including soil health and as food for other species
The problem with enforcement
The podcast suggests airport inspections alone won’t solve this:
- ants are tiny and hard to detect
- the real solution is educating collectors and reducing demand for illegally sourced species
Key takeaways
- AI is currently creating a lot of jobs, not just destroying them, especially in data-center infrastructure and AI-adjacent professional work.
- China’s food-safety problems remain deeply structural, despite government efforts and public outrage.
- The illegal ant trade is a real conservation issue, not just an odd curiosity, because queen ants are vital to ecosystems.
Notable insights
- AI may function more like a job creator through infrastructure and productivity gains than as an immediate labor-market destroyer.
- Food safety in China is as much about system complexity and incentives as it is about regulation.
- Even bizarre-seeming wildlife trafficking can have serious ecological consequences when demand becomes global.