Knowledge workers, whose jobs involve handling information rather than producing goods, were supposed to be the beneficiaries of neoliberalism and globalization. But generative AI and a hypercompetitive employment market is immiserating them too.
The article makes a good point that it’s less about replacing a knowledge worker completely and more industrializing what some categories of knowledge workers do.
Can one professional create a video with AI in a matter of hours instead of it taking days and needing actors, script writers and professional equipment? Apparently yes. And AI can even translate it in multiple languages without translators and voice actors.
Are they “great” videos? Probably not. Good enough and cheap enough for several uses? Probably yes.
Same for programming. The completely independent AI coder doesn’t exist and many are starting to doubt that it ever will, with the current technology.
But if GenAI can speed up development, even not super-significantly but to the point that it takes maybe 8 developers to do the work of 10, that is a 20% drop in demand for developers, which puts downward pressure on salaries too.
It’s like in agriculture. It’s not like technology produced completely automated ways to plow fields or harvest crops. But one guy with a tractor can now work one field in a few hours by himself.
With AI all this is mostly hypothetical, in the sense that OpenAI and co are all still burning money and resources at a pace that looks hard to sustain (let alone grow) and it’s unclear what the cost to the consumers will be like, when the dust settles and these companies will need to make a profit.
But still, when we’re laughing at all the failed attempts to make AI truly autonomous in many domains we might be missing the point
Part of the problem is also that, while an acre of land can feed a family of 4, there’s no way to generate enough surplus from that single acre to be able to afford a tractor in the first place. So the tractor creates the need for much larger farm plots being owned by a single person, which way up all the supposed extra free time the automation/mechanized tool was supposed to bring.
In the end, less people can work the land to sustain themselves and the only people better off are those who already had more than enough to go buy.
I think you hit the nail on the head where this is heading by questioning the final costs. Currently “AI” development is burning through insane piles of money and energy and no one is really paying a significant cost to use it… It’s a loss leader at the moment but it’s unclear if there are many uses for it if it were to be full price. Is it going to be another voice assistant situation where people like usi g it but it’s actually really hard to make any money off it directly?
The article makes a good point that it’s less about replacing a knowledge worker completely and more industrializing what some categories of knowledge workers do.
Can one professional create a video with AI in a matter of hours instead of it taking days and needing actors, script writers and professional equipment? Apparently yes. And AI can even translate it in multiple languages without translators and voice actors.
Are they “great” videos? Probably not. Good enough and cheap enough for several uses? Probably yes.
Same for programming. The completely independent AI coder doesn’t exist and many are starting to doubt that it ever will, with the current technology. But if GenAI can speed up development, even not super-significantly but to the point that it takes maybe 8 developers to do the work of 10, that is a 20% drop in demand for developers, which puts downward pressure on salaries too.
It’s like in agriculture. It’s not like technology produced completely automated ways to plow fields or harvest crops. But one guy with a tractor can now work one field in a few hours by himself.
With AI all this is mostly hypothetical, in the sense that OpenAI and co are all still burning money and resources at a pace that looks hard to sustain (let alone grow) and it’s unclear what the cost to the consumers will be like, when the dust settles and these companies will need to make a profit.
But still, when we’re laughing at all the failed attempts to make AI truly autonomous in many domains we might be missing the point
Part of the problem is also that, while an acre of land can feed a family of 4, there’s no way to generate enough surplus from that single acre to be able to afford a tractor in the first place. So the tractor creates the need for much larger farm plots being owned by a single person, which way up all the supposed extra free time the automation/mechanized tool was supposed to bring.
In the end, less people can work the land to sustain themselves and the only people better off are those who already had more than enough to go buy.
I think you hit the nail on the head where this is heading by questioning the final costs. Currently “AI” development is burning through insane piles of money and energy and no one is really paying a significant cost to use it… It’s a loss leader at the moment but it’s unclear if there are many uses for it if it were to be full price. Is it going to be another voice assistant situation where people like usi g it but it’s actually really hard to make any money off it directly?