The fear that AI will wipe out jobs is running up against a more hopeful case: that it makes work cheaper and frees people up for the things machines cannot do.

• Worry about AI taking jobs is now spilling into real hostility, including an attack tied to OpenAI's Sam Altman.
• The optimistic case is that AI makes people more productive and cuts the cost of many services.
• Freed-up workers could move into fields with big shortages, like child care, where demand far outstrips supply.
• Some work — raising children above all — is hard to automate and not something we would want automated anyway.

Outlook: The jobs debate will stay loud, but the near-term test is whether AI savings actually get redirected into the human-heavy work that is short on people.