Organized labor movements managed to fight back and improve conditions somewhat but will we be able to do it this time?
Humanity will not profit from generative AI, tech billionaires will. It is based on the theft of human labor of millions of programmer, artists and writers without any compensation. If left unchecked it will destroy the environment, any form of democracy, our mental health. It will cause mass unemployment at a grand scale.
Could it be in theory used for good? Maybe. As the current political situation stands it will cause massive suffering for the majority of people.
This assumes that there will be other jobs to get. If AI replaces a large enough segment of office jobs then huge portions of the population will be unable to afford essentials like food and healthcare.
It's literally that easy, showing up reliably is a super power that puts you in the 90th percentile of workers these days. The job probably won't be as comfortable as sitting on a comfortable chair in an air-conditioning office wiggling your fingers at a computer, but so what? Other people make it work, so can you. Man up.
And even within the realm of "tech", it's kinda bonkers to expect e.g. a firmware engineer to have some deep understanding of trends in ML/AI.
Altogether your #1 priority seems to be "bashing workers", the justification just being a matter of convenience.
I’m not in the tech industry anymore because in the battle of people who wanted to solve problems with software and money grubbing MBAs, the money grubbing MBAs have won. Now I’m a union machinist, and believe it or not, I’m concerned about the wellbeing of others. In manufacturing, companies are starting to face the consequences of shortsightedly selling out their workforce and are frantically clamoring to use the agonal breaths of its existing manufacturing industry knowledge base to breathe life into a new generation of workers. China becoming a manufacturing powerhouse wasn’t a foregone conclusion: we gave it to them in exchange for short-term profits. Our economy, national security, and the financial viability of a robust middle class is paying the price for their greed and arrogance.
The people running the tech industry can’t see the world past the end of this quarter, so they’ll never learn the lessons our society has learned many times over. Good luck. Unless you’re running a company, you’re going to need it. The soft, arrogant, whiny, maladroit white collar workers coming into the trades are pathetically ill-equipped to do actual work.
