That’s what folks were crassly saying to truck drivers, baristas, and cashiers.
The writing was/is on the wall: AI is only going to get more powerful and able to be applied to more and more complex tasks.
The thought was that “unskilled” labor would be the lowest hanging fruit, that automated AI - with some (but minimal) human oversight - would replace serious chunks of the workforce in various minimum-wage and “blue collar” sectors.
Machines don’t necessarily need to sleep, they don’t have labor unions, or laws that require healthcare or overtime pay. They don’t get upset, take things personally, seek revenge, or reciprocity like a person.
Sounds like that could be a threat to many kinds of jobs, many of them “bullshit jobs” (in the words of Graeber), but others as well.
It seems (to me, at least) that the more immanent threat is text-based AI - with some human oversight - replacing large swaths of the tech workforce (many of whom were leading the narrative about the truck drivers).
The incentives for companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and others, to go this route are obvious, beyond the stated reasons why “low-skilled” labor is at risk. They already have enormous investments, acquisitions, projects, established platforms, and infrastructure related to AI.
I expect to see more partnerships like the one between Microsoft and OpenAI, from all of the major tech companies.
I also believe the connection between the acquisitions/partnerships and the mass layoffs will become more and more obvious as these acquisitions/partnerships continue to happen.
I can’t be the only person that is noticing this…