Discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) have largely centered on how the new technology will change the way we work. The rate of this change, it is safe to say, is happening more quickly than other technological disruptions. For example, the advent of computers was glacial compared to how quickly AI is being adopted. According to the American Management Association's 2025 research, 95% of organizations now use AI, with 58% reporting daily use – a dramatic shift from just two years prior.

Despite this dramatic transformation, a closer look at data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) might reveal another story.  A story that shows that millions of Americans are in jobs that remain stubbornly immune to disruption.

Consider the job of a waiter. Data from the BLS’s 2025 Occupational Requirements Survey shows waiters and waitresses spend 98.6% of their workday on their feet.  If you have done that work, you know that it translates into nearly an entire shift standing and moving. They have only 18.9% "pause control," meaning most cannot take breaks when they choose. Virtually none (<0.5%) work at a self-paced rhythm, and 90.3% face constantly shifting schedules determined entirely by their employer. These are fixed physical and time-based aspects of the work that AI, regardless of its sophistication, cannot eliminate.

In contrast, software developers enjoy 97.1% sitting time, over 95% pause control, and 65.8% self-paced work.  Waiters work under conditions defined by physical endurance and little autonomy. The contrast is a reminder that AI's impact will be profoundly unequal.

The same pattern emerges across service and manual labor occupations. Dishwashers spend 98.2% of their day standing and face 95.9% exposure to wetness. Construction laborers work in conditions that require 89.2% standing, with only 39.6% having any pause control. Firefighters, as can be imagined, actually have greater autonomy (though still under 5% self-paced work) but face 98.7% exposure to extreme heat.

These jobs share three characteristics: high physical demands, minimal worker control, and low educational barriers (80.3% of waiter positions require no minimum education). They also represent work that humans must physically perform, in real-time, responding to unpredictable conditions. You can't automate standing for eight hours. You can't use AI to lift 50 pounds repeatedly. And you certainly can't prompt-engineer your way through a lunch rush or a kitchen fire.

The BLS data provides a crucial counternarrative to the AI displacement discussions, highlighting that many jobs exist in a world where the fundamental requirements haven't changed in decades and won't change in the next decade either. Their work remains physical, immediate, and human.

So yes, tip your waiter. Not just for the service, but in recognition that while AI transforms the knowledge economy, millions of Americans are doing work that remains essentially unchanged and defined by physical presence, manual skill, and human endurance rather than by the algorithms reshaping white-collar careers.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Requirements Survey 2025; American Management Association, "AI Becomes a Daily Workplace Tool," December 2025