"I’m off today, but AI isn’t"... A 40-something manager’s chilling realization on International Workers' Day [Blind Spot]

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[Financial News] Afternoon on International Workers' Day, May 1. A cup of coffee enjoyed after sleeping in and leaning back on the sofa feels sweet.
The comfort of a weekday without the hellish commute. But Manager Kim, in his 40s, feels strangely unsettled. On Friday, just before clocking out, he had handed ChatGPT a massive data-gathering task that would normally have taken several sleepless nights, and it was finished in just 10 minutes. That eerie feeling has stayed with him.
"I’m resting like this today, but that thing is probably still evolving on Labor Day without taking a break."
May 1 is a day to honor workers' rights and the value of labor. Paradoxically, white-collar workers in their 30s and 40s in South Korea are facing a cold truth: the value of their own labor is depreciating at a frightening pace.
◆ The stopped commute and AI's '24-hour unpaid labor'
The 40-hour workweek, holiday pay, and even the sacred status of International Workers' Day, all won through human struggle, mean little in the face of artificial intelligence. AI does not form unions, demand raises, or take a single day off. It works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without pay.
Statistics back up that feeling with hard numbers. According to a report released earlier this year by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), AI is expected to affect 40% of jobs worldwide and as much as 60% of jobs in advanced economies such as South Korea.
Goldman Sachs had already warned that generative AI could automate 300 million jobs around the world, and that 46% of administrative jobs and 44% of legal jobs in the United States would be hit directly.
We are entering an era in which white-collar office jobs are being broken before manual labor jobs.
◆ The 'career' of a 15-year veteran collapses in 15 seconds
This threat is especially harsh for middle managers in their 30s and 40s because the shield they had trusted has been pierced.
In the past, the so-called 'experience and know-how' built over 10 or 15 years at a company was what gave workers value and survival power. The ability to polish a proposal into something persuasive or summarize a mountain of material was the domain of deputy managers and managers.
But now AI can turn those 15 years of experience into perfect text and presentations in just 15 seconds.
A single line of 'prompt' entered into AI by a smart new employee is far more productive than the document-writing skills of a clumsy middle manager.
The warning from Richard Baldwin, a professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute, that "AI will not replace you, but someone else using AI will" captures the painful reality that outdated labor can be pushed aside at any time in today's workplace.
◆ The end of labor... will you be 'replaced,' or will you own a 'stake'?
So should we be angry and despair? In the face of this massive industrial revolution, protesting for 'job security' is likely to become an empty echo. We need to strip away emotion and read the board coldly.
If the value of my labor is falling, there is only one choice left: stand on the side of capital, which replaces labor and makes astronomical sums of money. Keep buying shares in the companies leading the global AI revolution that threatens me. That is the only financial asset and 'survival lever' that can defend my aging labor.
On International Workers' Day in 2026, what we should truly be asking is not whether we can take it easy for one day. I work 40 hours a week and grow older, but is my capital working on its own for 168 hours and growing? That is the most chilling and fundamental question the 30s and 40s generation, surrounded by AI's unpaid labor, should be asking on an afternoon in May.
jsi@fnnews.com Jeon Sang-il Reporter