> Is the large scale rollout of predictive algorithms really a bigger wave than those that have come previously?

No of course it isn't. But because it's called "artificial intelligence" instead of "conditional probability" or "regression" or something people think otherwise.

The reality is that this kind of technology will make us more productive, bring down the cost of products and services and make them available to a mass market, in exactly the same way literally every tech advance has done.

Of course some jobs and disciplines will be lost, but they will be replaced with different, higher skilled jobs. Just look at the range of disciplines and jobs that the web has created over the last 20 years. I mean just look at Google. The world's largest "AI" platform has spawned entire industries. No evidence this trend won't continue.