The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is well underway and is already impacting employment opportunities in some of the most technical fields.
This is very bad news for blue states. A recent Fortune Magazine report stated that “the first step onto the corporate ladder is vanishing for many new graduates.” Entry-level jobs are becoming extinct, and there are far fewer internships for college graduates. Today, computer science and computer engineering majors are finding it extremely difficult to get a job and are seeing some of the highest unemployment rates, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
If you own a business in a capitalist society, you adapt or die. Many tech firms have begun to focus on building tangible products rather than solely writing and selling software. “AI is seen not as an end but a tool. It is a means to enhance human creativity and productivity rather than replace it,” writes Joel Kotkin in UnHerd.
“Now people are shifting to hard tech.,” observed Delian Asparouhov, who runs an in-space manufacturing company. “Designing and building spaceships still needs people,” he added.
This could spell trouble for elite universities, but represents a major advantage for schools that teach the practical skills companies actually need. So far, these opportunities are largely concentrated in red and purple states in the Midwest and South — the regions most focused on reshoring manufacturing and other industries from overseas.
Attitudes are shifting alongside these economic changes. One recent survey found that roughly 83% of Generation Z feel that learning a skilled trade can be a better pathway to economic security than college — including 90% of those already holding college degrees. Indeed, as college enrolment has dropped between 2020 and 2023, trade school enrolment grew by 10%. These changes suggest that as practical skills gain value, regions offering them are likely to attract both talent and jobs.
While technology job opportunities in California have remained flat, Texas led the nation in new tech jobs, Florida came in second, and Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina also showed significant job growth in the tech sector. Drawn by the more favorable business climate in red states, new companies are flocking to the red Sun Belt to set up shop. The Computing Technology Association (CompTIA) projects that the fastest growth in tech jobs over the next decade will be in Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina.
It’s no accident that the red-blue state divide is likely to widen with the AI revolution. AI is a ravenous energy user, and a state like California, with the highest electricity costs in the nation, can’t compete with energy-rich Texas in building the huge AI server farms needed to drive AI to the next level.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping the economic landscape, rewarding regions with affordable energy, practical skills, and a willingness to build tangible products. As California’s high costs and stagnant growth push tech jobs to Texas, the South, and Pennsylvania, the winners are likely to be those states that combine infrastructure, talent, and a pragmatic approach to industry. The question is no longer just about innovation — it’s about where that innovation can thrive, and which states are ready to seize the opportunities AI creates.
Colleges and tech schools in red states are producing the kinds of employees needed for the new economy, and the business climate for AI-driven innovation is most favorable in those same states.
AI promises to be the most disruptive force in employment in our lifetimes, surpassing the computer revolution of the 1970s-80s. Now, the jobs that were on the cutting edge of success during the last tech revolution are being pushed aside.
It’s critical that this overturning of the status quo continue. Capitalism’s great advantage is in “creative destruction,” the process of eliminating old, inefficient industries and jobs and replacing them with those better able to compete in the new marketplace.
The status quo is not going to give up without a fight. Unions, politicians who benefit from the old ways, and large companies unable or unwilling to compete will try to stifle the AI revolution before it has a chance to gain momentum.
A group of Silicon Valley tech leaders is planning to infuse $100 million in political contributions to fight back against the counterrevolution.
The political action committee, known as Leading the Future, “hopes to use campaign donations and digital ads to advocate for select AI policies and oppose candidates who the group believes will stifle the industry at large,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
“There is a vast force out there that’s looking to slow down AI deployment, prevent the American worker from benefiting from the U.S. leading in global innovation and job creation and erect a patchwork of regulation,” the group’s leaders, Josh Vlasto and Zac Moffatt, said in a joint statement. “This is the ecosystem that is going to be the counterforce going into next year.”
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It’s a fine line between advocating for freedom to develop AI in any direction it takes programmers and overindulging AI developers and giving them too much leeway — which could threaten humanity.
We haven’t figured it out yet. And that should concern all of us.
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