Goldman Sachs predicted in their 2023 report that 18% of global jobs could disappear due to AI automation. McKinsey analyzed that up to 800 million jobs could be replaced by automation by 2030. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 1.7 million manufacturing jobs are expected to disappear over the next decade due to AI and automation.

In the face of such statistics, many people are gripped by fear. The anxiety of those working in areas like content creation, translation, customer service, and data analysis is becoming reality. IBM actually announced in 2023 that it would halt hiring in HR departments and replace them with AI, while major Wall Street investment banks are drastically reducing their hiring of junior analysts.

However, this crisis situation is precisely the opportunity that can make us stronger. The threat of survival and uncertainty have always been humanity's most primal and powerful driving forces. During the Industrial Revolution, countless artisans lost their jobs, but ultimately more diverse occupations emerged. The key is not to fear change but to respond proactively.

We must accurately identify areas that AI cannot replace. According to Oxford University research, jobs requiring creativity, social intelligence, and complex problem-solving skills have less than a 10% probability of AI replacement. This means that establishing one's unique experiences and perspectives - one's own 'chair' - has become more important than ever.

In fact, human-specific roles are expanding even in the AI era. According to Salesforce's 2023 survey, 71% of companies responded that human creative roles became more important after AI adoption. As AI handles repetitive and analytical tasks, humans can focus more on strategy development, relationship building, and innovative thinking.

The problem is that it's difficult to respond to these changes alone. Individual uniqueness has its limitations. This is why we need a collaborative table composed of four legs: purpose, creativity, decision-making, and motivation. These four elements are purely human domains that AI cannot replace, while being capabilities that teams can demonstrate better than individuals.

AI-human collaboration is actually creating entirely new forms of jobs. According to LinkedIn data, job postings for 'AI Prompt Engineers' increased by a whopping 434% since 2023, showing that companies are actively seeking these capabilities. AI-human interaction designer positions grew approximately 210% since 2020, reaching about 820,000 people, while 'AI Ethics Specialists' and 'Explainable AI Experts' expanded from being virtually non-existent in 2019 to becoming new job categories with 315,000 people by 2023.

Even more interesting changes are happening in Silicon Valley. OpenAI is hiring thousands of people for previously non-existent positions such as AI model trainers, AI safety researchers, and AI policy experts. Google DeepMind is also continuously creating new roles like AI interpretation specialists, algorithmic bias analysts, and AI-human interaction researchers.

What's even more fascinating is the evolution of existing professions. New York Times journalists are expanding their roles as 'AI-assisted journalists,' Wall Street traders as 'AI financial strategists,' and doctors as 'AI diagnostic collaboration specialists.' According to McKinsey research, over 60% of current jobs can improve productivity by more than 30% through collaboration with AI.

What's particularly hopeful is that the entry barrier to new AI-related professions is not as high as learning computers or coding tools in the past. Unlike the past when one had to invest years in mastering complex programming languages or building technical expertise, AI utilization occurs through conversational questioning and communication. This means that the rich experience, intuitive thinking, and situational judgment that senior generations possess can actually become major strengths.

More importantly, job creation in the AI era occurs more effectively through community and group-level collaboration rather than individual solo work. When each person's expertise and experience are shared and combined at the table, AI serves as a powerful amplification tool. In such collaborative structures, creative ideas, problem-solving abilities, and communication skills become more important assets than age or technical background.

Real opportunities are created when individual chairs combine with collective tables. Actual cases make this clearer. Netflix created a content recommendation system that combines AI algorithms with human curators, making over 80% of user viewing occur through the recommendation system. In this process, existing content analysts didn't disappear but evolved into new roles like 'AI Content Strategists' and 'Personalized Experience Designers.'

Spotify follows the same pattern. While AI handles music recommendations, human curators have expanded their roles to become 'AI Music Storytellers' and 'Emotion-based Playlist Designers.' As a result, music-related jobs didn't decrease but diversified.

Similar phenomena are appearing in America's healthcare sector. Mayo Clinic introduced AI diagnostic systems, but doctors' roles actually expanded. As AI handles basic diagnosis and data analysis, doctors can invest more time in patient communication, treatment planning, and solving complex cases.

What's important is that the expansion of AI into real-world business that we're currently witnessing is still in its early stages. While AI adoption has mainly progressed around tech companies and digital platforms so far, it will expand to traditional and conservative industry sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, construction, education, and law.

Jobs that are hard to imagine now are expected to emerge: AI-based precision agriculture consultants in farming, AI safety management experts on construction sites, and AI legal-tech specialists in law firms. This wave of change will accelerate further over the next decade, continuously creating new forms of jobs we haven't predicted.

Ultimately, we shouldn't simply compete with AI for survival, but move toward creating more value through collaboration with AI. Starting from each person's unique chair, we should form tables with diverse people and create new forms of work and professions at those tables.

This is not a zero-sum game but a game of expanding the pie. According to the World Economic Forum's 2025 report, more jobs will be created than lost due to AI. The analysis predicts that by 2030, 170 million new jobs will be created globally while 92 million will disappear, resulting in a net increase of about 78 million jobs. AI-related new jobs alone are projected to reach millions globally.

We are now at the starting point of spiral development toward richer coexistence. Rather than being discouraged by fears of AI job displacement, we should use this change as an opportunity to strengthen our individual chairs and create tables with more diverse people. This is the most realistic and sustainable strategy for living in the AI era.