I will put programming as an example of white-collar job but the argument holds for many other jobs.
Farmers still exist today but they exist in drastically fewer numbers than two centuries ago. The modern farming machinery and techniques did not replace farmers but made the industry much less labor intensive.
Nowadays programming is a labor intensive activity with relative high salaries. AI is introducing the possibility to do this activity, that worldwide cost companies billions of dollars in programmers salaries, much more efficiently.
And this is, in my opinion the goal of companies like OpenAI. They know that they can’t remove the human being out of the loop because current AI is not able to substitute all human cognitive capabilities that intervine in a software developer daily job; like talking with the client, figuring out what he wants and translating it to functional requirements. But nonetheless, they think they have a clear shot to make programming a non labor intensive activity like farming is today.
And of course, this is a compelling multibillion business opportunity that is attracting increasing capital from the tech and the financial sectors.