Artificial Intelligence Promises to Make Our Work Easier — But What If AI Doesn’t Need Us at All? - The Source

As some recent university graduates expressed with loud boos during the commencement speeches of pro-AI speakers, artificial intelligence is cause for concern, not excitement, as they enter an increasingly automated workforce.

For starters, studies have shown that AI has already — or stands to — replace millions of entry-level and mid-level positions throughout myriad industries. Think computer programmers, commercial jingle writers and — gulp — some types of journalists. If the bottom few rungs of the workforce ladder have been stripped away for cost-cutting measures, skeptics might wonder: How will the next generation of the workforce not only rise up, but who will steer these industries when the executive class joins the Club Med in the sky?

I’m middle-aged but I’m with the grads.

Hoping to have my concerns massaged, I spoke with Kevin Goldberg, the founder and CEO of iS2 Digital, a business technology firm. He recently launched the AI Fireside Chat speaker series in Bend. Asked to describe the AI landscape in five to 10 years, as he envisions it, Goldberg says it will be much more common to find people who’ve fully automated their daily tasks to AI agents.

Kevin Goldberg, a business technology CEO, wants to give you the low-down on artificial intelligence in plain English, through his AI Fireside Chat speaker series in Bend. Credit: Kevin Goldberg

“I can imagine a future where AI is supportive, we’re living in a renaissance of humanity, because a lot of the mundanity has been taken away and we have more freedom,” Goldberg said. “That is obviously the hope I have for AI in the future.”

I mentioned that with so many services being replaced by AI, the future might need a dose of socialism so people can keep roofs overhead.

“There’s some reality there,” Goldberg said. “If there are no jobs to be had, then we need some sort of different economic setup, for sure. We can’t have 10 people owning all the jobs and the money.”

“We’re going to need governance; we’re going to need thoughtful people who are leading the charge,” Goldberg added.

Beyond that, Goldberg said he doesn’t like to get too political when talking about AI.

I still wondered: What must citizens and lawmakers do to safeguard workers’ places at the table when AI is maximizing, if not entirely cannibalizing, our output?

I came across the excellent analysis in The Guardian: “If AI Makes Human Labor Obsolete, Who Decided Who Gets to Eat?” Writer Eduardo Porter hits all the notes:

“How will we be fed?” Porter offers as a salvo. “That’s the biggest question not seriously being addressed amid all this talk about whether or not artificial intelligence will end up taking over all of our jobs.”

That people in high places are sounding the alarm bells is, somehow, more worrying.

“We need guardrails that preserve human agency, human oversight and human accountability,” says António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general. He was speaking at the AI Impact Summit in February. “The future of AI cannot be decided by a handful of countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires.”

In his analysis, Porter writes that one of the biggest challenges is not just in making AI do precisely what its humans want it to do, but to align the goals of AI systems and their owners with the broader goals of society.

One way to tether society’s fortunes to that of the AI industry, Porter continues, is for government to, “directly distribute the equity of AI ventures. Taxes might be collected in shares rather than cash to amass a public stake over time.

“Rather than tax the returns on AI investments,” he writes, “a more radical proposal would be for the government to expropriate a chunk of equity upfront to redistribute among the population and directly grant Americans a share in AI’s promised cornucopia.”

Doing so with legislation, the author notes, may be easier said than done.

Another piece by The Guardian details how tectonic tech companies like Meta and Google have been pouring millions of dollars into the November election in California, for example. David McCuan, a Sonoma State University political science professor who studies state lobbying, told The Guardian that the tech companies and billionaire class are using a multi-pronged approach. They’re giving cash to campaigns big and small, from tech-friendly gubernatorial candidates to those running for city councils and even school boards.

“If you’re an uber-zillionaire, you give money early and often,” McCuan told The Guardian. “They have more wealth and resources than they’ve ever had before, so that allows them to play on both sides of the aisle and up and down the ballot and across issues like never before.”

Sigh.

I don’t have the answers. Aside from outsourcing the transcription of phone interviews, for example, I don’t use it. AI art sucks. AI music sucks. I’m often fooled by AI-enhanced pet videos on Instagram. The hit of dopamine is replaced by a sinking feeling that I’ve fallen, once again, for a cynical bait-and-switch.

Yet, I find solace in a morbid place. Easing into midlife, I realize that each additional day I live is one day less I have to worry about AI.