The Lamplighter Problem
What do we do about mass job displacement?
For we are all very lucky, with a lamp before the door
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more.
- Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Lamplighter” (1885)
I wonder what it was like to have a friendly lamplighter like Leerie in the neighborhood, making the rounds each evening to manually light the street lamps. Stevenson’s nostalgic view of the lamplighter reminds me of how older generations remember milkmen — friendly faces, informal watchmen. By the early 20th century, lamplighters like Leerie lost their jobs as gas lamps were replaced by electric lighting. Some were retrained for electrical work; others moved on elsewhere.
Today, hundreds of millions of people face a similar fate. McKinsey estimates that AI-driven automation could displace 400 to 800 million global workers by 2030.1 I can’t help but wonder: What will happen as intelligent machines take over? How can society cushion the impact? I think about these issues as a dad and as someone who lives at the intersection of technology and politics.
We are all “Leeries.” AI is sparking a labor revolution as profound as the Industrial Revolution, affecting every role in the global economy — port workers, lawyers, designers, and more. The stakes are enormous: the future of the economy, democracy, and how people find purpose. Yet public discourse is trailing the technology by a decade or more. It’s like a tsunami is approaching and we are sipping Mai Tais, discussing last week’s weather. If we don’t catch up fast, AI will reshape the world before we even realize it, and by then it will be a fait accompli.
We need a shorthand for what’s coming. I’m calling it the Lamplighter Problem — a way to frame the political, social, and economic consequences of mass displacement. In Stevenson’s poem, the lamplighter brightened the streets each night. Then electricity arrived and he was displaced.
Both Sam Altman and Curtis Yarvin have recently touched on these themes through the figure of the lamplighter. Altman, CEO of OpenAI, invoked the lamplighter in his essay “The Intelligence Age,” offering an optimistic take on AI’s future.2 “Nobody is looking back at the past, wishing they were a lamplighter,” he wrote, highlighting how technology has advanced human progress.
In contrast, Yarvin argues in a response titled “Sam Altman’s Lamplighter” that perhaps we should wish more people were lamplighters.3 To Yarvin, it is better to be a lamplighter than an idle welfare recipient on UBI, binge-watching Netflix. Work, in his view, gives people meaning, dignity, and purpose. He advocates creating traditional, artisanal jobs to counter automation’s destabilizing effects — something like a large-scale Etsy economy. I’m not sure that’s the solution, but I agree with his core point: automation isn’t just an economic problem; it’s a political one. The job churn in the Industrial Revolution gave rise to communism, he points out. If automation outruns social stability, the political consequences could be dire. History suggests backlash rarely ends neatly.
As I read their essays, I couldn’t help but picture Leerie and the many “Leeries” in my life today. I know both Altman and Yarvin, and I’m friendly with many in the tech world. At the same time, I have loved ones whose jobs could someday be automated, while others are question marks. Will my nephew just starting out as a commercial pilot be displaced by autonomous planes someday? I just don’t know. I feel the tension. So I find myself of two minds: AI excites me, and I want to accelerate into the future. But I’m also wary of the upheaval it will cause. This transformation could displace millions, destabilize lives, and challenge the structures that give people meaning and purpose, including democracy itself. That tension is the Lamplighter Problem.
At its core, the Lamplighter Problem asks us a simple question: how do we maximize human flourishing in the coming “intelligence age”? How do we make sure the AI tsunami benefits human freedom and autonomy, and that the gains are shared broadly? Even with a shared north star, people will have different ideas for achieving it. For some, advancing human flourishing will mean standing in the way of AI advancements yelling STOP. For others, it will mean accelerating AI at full throttle, yelling GO GO GO. Most of us will find ourselves somewhere in between. My approach leans toward GO, but with eyes open.
This isn’t theoretical. We already see versions of the Lamplighter Problem in action. Take the recent labor dispute involving Harold Daggett of the International Longshoremen Association, a key figure in the fight over port automation. At first, I thought: Automate the ports!.Competing globally demands efficiency. Rotterdam figured this out decades ago. But when I consider the thousands of jobs at risk — the families and communities — and multiply that across hundreds of other professions, the Lamplighter Problem becomes clear. These tradeoffs are real. They demand humility.
As a society, we must face the Lamplighter Problem head-on. Naming it is a start. We need to talk about it — seriously, and soon.
The electric lights are coming on. We won’t be lighting them by hand much longer. The question is whether we’ll be prepared for what comes next.
Special thanks to CansaFis Foote and others for feedback on drafts. I want to know your thoughts! Please share in the comments. Below is the full poem.
The Lamplighter
by Robert Louis Stevenson (published in 1885)
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.
Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I’m to do,
Oh Leerie, I’ll go round at night and light the lamps with you!
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light,
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him tonight!
The argument for keeping lamplighters reminds me of Milton Friedman's argument about make-work jobs:
At a canal-digging project, Friedman's hosts were eager to show the many laborers working to excavate a canal. But Friedman was more interested in the lack of modern machinery on the site. He asked why they relied on human labor to do a job that would be more easily and quickly done with modern machinery. “This is a jobs program,” came back the reply. Friedman responded that he had mistakenly thought they were building a canal. If they were only seeking to provide extended employment to many workers, he said, they would need even more if they handed out spoons for digging, rather than shovels.
Looking forward to hearing more about this! Maybe the solution isn't hard labor sinecures, but soft labor ones. Like social clubs, aids for the lonely, things like that? Maybe you're getting to that. . . Lamplighters who shine lights of hope and connection