AI and its Consequences
AI and its Consequences
Weaving with the loom, despite happening long ago, displaced many jobs of sole proprietors and skilled workers. With the work of many now replaced by the work of 1 + a machine. With economies of scale, they were organized into huge warehouses to work under 1 roof for 1 boss. How can sole proprietors compete when this warehouse saves on shared heating, lighting, and is more space efficient than 100 separate houses, 1 for each sole proprietor? Certainly this was better than before. More fabrics, less physical work and mental strain. Sure, a lot of your friends are no longer employed but they can find another job in another factory. We can all produce more. It sure is better now than before with all this new technology and cheap fabrics.
This is where we find ourselves with AI. No longer will skilled workers toil in sweat and mental haze. The magic AI slot machine will probably have an answer for you. In fact, why need skills at all when you can build an AI system controllable by cheap labour. Software is cheaper than ever, systems are cheaper than ever. Instead of a team of engineers, we can get AI to design the prototype and to run customer tests, guided by 1 person. We certainly don’t need a customer representative, when we can just have an AI system and a few contractors in the back to classify anything else that are edge cases. Certainly this is better.
Say, what happened to the others? Surely they found a job at another factory. It seems interesting that all other factories compete in a manner to reduce costs, therefore, there are less and less jobs of the like. No worries, I’m sure they can jump to a new industry like those fancy new self-driving cars.
No matter, I have the skills to persist, despite the pool of hiring being shallower and shallower. With this hard work and higher productivity, I wonder why the pay is still the same as before? They save so much by having less people, but I keep working harder and harder. Nevertheless, this is certainly better than unemployment.
You may be wondering at this point, when does it get better? Let me tell you, it already has! Not to the average worker, of course, but think of the capitalist. They can monopolize the market and extract so much profit! The rate of return is huge and only gets bigger with compound interest. AI as with other machines and technological advancement just needs to beat the average in terms of cost to save money. Skills do not matter when sewing by hand versus mass production with the loom. When AI systems proliferate more than they do now, we will wonder, is it getting better yet? Certainly this is better… right?
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Thump thump thumping of the loom, grows louder and louder, the engines of capital demand more and more.
See the consequences of compound interest next: link
No AI was used in the making of this blog post! 🚫🤖🚫