Replacing, Augmenting, or Resisting? Interpretive Repertoires of Human–AI Relations at Work in Reddit Discussions

Public discussion of artificial intelligence and employment is often reduced to a binary between technological optimism and pessimism. This qualitative study examines 3275 substantive comments from 22 purposively selected English-language Reddit threads, spanning 18 subreddits and thirteen occupational or institutional domains, collected in early April 2026. Drawing on interpretive-repertoire analysis and using sociotechnical imaginaries as a sensitizing framework, the study identifies nine recurring vocabularies through which participants construct relations between AI and human labor: replacement; displacement and stratification; augmentation and complementarity, including augmentation-as-intensification; surveillance and subordination; algorithmic gatekeeping; selective immunity and embodied resistance; adaptation mandate; institutional redesign; and replacement reversal. The sampled discussions suggest occupationally patterned differences in the salience of these repertoires. Creative work discussions frequently foregrounded replacement and stratification, service-work discussions emphasized intensification and control, skilled-trades discussions mobilized embodied immunity, and legal discussions foregrounded institutional redesign. The findings show that vernacular discussion differentiates among multiple locations, mechanisms, and beneficiaries of AI-related change that cannot be captured adequately through a simple optimism–pessimism distinction.