Source: Fortune
Summary
Richard Florida, who coined the term “creative class,” disputes claims that AI is wiping out white-collar jobs. He argues AI will make certain creative work more valuable rather than eliminate it. Data shows job losses in film, publishing, and broadcasting, with 189,000 roles lost in creative sectors since 2022. Florida believes AI will shift work toward roles requiring social and creative skills, which he says are concentrated in cities. He also notes that while some industries decline, others like performing arts grow.
Our Reading
The numbers tell one story.
AI is reshaping work, not replacing it.
Some creative jobs are vanishing, others are growing.
Cities are adapting to new kinds of work.
Human skills are still in demand.
Author: Evan Null
Downtown is for the people
The damage is deepest in film and TV production, where employment peaked at 289,100 in October 2022 and has since fallen by more than a third, according to the BLS. In June, the broader film and sound recording sector fell to 322,300 jobs nationally, its lowest level since 1995 aside from the pandemic. In Los Angeles, shoot days fell from 36,792 in 2022 to 19,694 in 2025, and about 41,000 film and TV workers left the industry between 2022 and 2024.
Despite this, employment in performing arts and spectator sports, which depends on people gathering in one place, grew by about 67,000 jobs over the same four years.
Florida says he believes it’s because AI gives cities the chance to do what cities do best. He divides work into three types: manual work, cognitive work, and what he called “social skills, people skills, human skills, entrepreneurial skills.” AI is automating the first two while making the third more valuable. Social skills, he said, cluster in big cities.
“That’s why you’re seeing cities like New York and San Francisco become more important, not less,” Florida said. The AI industry follows the same map: “They’re based in San Francisco. Their application occurs in New York.”
New York’s mix of neighborhoods is part of his case. “Brooklyn and Queens and maybe the Bronx now are some of the few places in the world where the creative class and the service class live together,” Florida said.
AI will give cities new life
The growth in live events is not reaching every kind of gathering place. The U.S. lost one-fifth of its movie theaters and nearly one-third of its bowling alleys since 2001. These neighborhood third places are becoming too expensive both to operate and to visit, while big-ticket venues draw crowds downtown. That, in turn, is driving away the very community Jacobs advocated for: People are talking to each other less, going out and having fun less, spending more time at home, and as a result, are as unhappy as ever.
Florida said that’s partially due to AI itself. “AI is both an enhancing technology and eliminating technology,” he said. “We don’t know what the net will be, but the net’s better.”
AI will hit parts of the creative class hard, Florida said, especially entry-level work built on brute mental effort: “the grind-out jobs that people work till midnight in a consulting firm or in a financial firm, because AI can do that kind of stuff really efficiently.”
“It changes the role of an accountant or an engineer or an artist. It doesn’t eliminate that job. It makes that job different,” he said. The abilities that gain value are traits of the creative class. “Judgment, taste, originality, imagination, asking the right questions, being able to mobilize people.”
“I don’t think it’ll kill the creative class,” Florida said. “It’ll change the creative class, but in many ways, it’ll also liberate the creative class.”
