--- title: "AI Job Loss Is Breaking the Psyche of Workers, Psychiatrist Warns" description: "A psychiatrist specializing in the mental health of the unemployed has a grim warning for the workers of the world." date: "2026-03-08" modified: "2026-03-08" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-unemployment-psychiatry" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Brain" - "Ethics" - "Health & Medicine" - "Mental Health" --- # AI Job Loss Is Breaking the Psyche of Workers, Psychiatrist Warns ![A person in a white shirt is sitting at a desk with their head down, covered by a closed laptop. The desk has a newspaper and a calculator on it. The image has a red and pink color overlay.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images* If you're one of the hundreds of millions of Americans who earn a wage for a living, it can be hard to stay positive in the wake of recent headlines. Jack Dorsey's Block just cut [4,000 roles citing AI](), which came on the heels of Amazon's rolling layoffs, which sent some [16,000 office workers]() packing. Oracle, meanwhile, just announced it's culling [at least 20,000 workers]() from its ranks. In an [interview with the *Psychiatric Times*](), psychiatrist Andrew Brown argued that the economic distress associated with this kind of unemployment also carries clinical side effects. A psych professional primarily focusing on the mental health of the unemployed, Brown has [previously warned]() about how AI-driven job loss fuels anxiety and self-doubt. Now, those warnings are becoming all too real. "What we can expect to see" with the AI jobs onslaught, he suggests, "is an amplification" of the anxieties that typically come with a loss of income. This is obvious enough: without money to pay for rent, groceries, heat, healthcare, or any of the other necessities of life, people don't exactly thrive. One of the hidden impacts of all this, Brown asserts, is a heightened risk of psychological illness. "There's an initial shock that comes with job loss," but then, "when worklessness is prolonged, when it becomes a chronic, reality-based problem, you see a variety of other psychological-psychiatric illnesses and morbidities that arise," Brown explains. Medically, he notes, this can occur even in individuals without a prior history of psychiatric distress. Whether you buy the tales of AI-related job loss — which, to be fair, are likely a [major oversimplification]() — the labor market outlook is [looking pretty grim]() regardless. "We won't just have individuals who are suffering as a result of job loss once or twice," Brown says. "We can expect serial job loss and chronic uncertainty, and therefore chronic anxiety about one's future, one's future in the workplace, one's future capacity to sustain themselves economically." "It will no longer be possible for people to develop a coherent and sustainable personal narrative about their professional identity, because the ability to contribute to the workforce has become so unstable, so fragmented." As this goes on, he says, our individual sense of usefulness — based on the development of specialized skills over the course of a career — will also come under threat. Brown concludes: "what we'll see with AI is that, not only will one have to develop a new skill set once or twice, but there will be this serial way in which skills are suddenly rendered useless." **More on AI:** *[Ars Technica Fires Reporter After AI Controversy Involving Fabricated Quotes]()* ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()