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The rise in job layoffs and losses, as frequently reported in the news, has heightened concerns about the potential of AI and automation to supplant a significant portion of the workforce. For instance, the recent move by Gizmodo, a tech news platform, to use AI for article translations underscores the increasing adoption of automation. While such innovations can boost efficiency, they also pose substantial challenges for the labor market, necessitating astute policy interventions.
AI and automation are central to job dislocation, making certain skills and positions obsolete. Under the weight of competition, businesses are driven to optimize operations and minimize costs. This might involve resorting to outsourcing and integrating advanced technologies. This relentless drive towards cost-cutting, sometimes even compromising quality, ethical practices, and worker welfare, is a growing concern. Intense price wars have notably reduced profit margins across various industries.
A direct consequence of these dynamics has been the decline of middle-class employment opportunities in numerous developed nations. Factors such as increasing disparities, competitive markets, and offshoring have strained conventional middle-income households. The number of well-compensated, stable jobs has diminished, even as living costs soar, resulting in an economic squeeze and a dwindling middle class.
Yet, it's not all gloom and doom. Historically, technological progress has often paved the way for new job sectors and industries. The IT boom, for example, emerged from the efficiencies introduced by computers. The real challenges are ensuring that job creation in fresh domains compensates for losses and enabling workers displaced by technology to pivot to new roles. Rapid advancements without adequate safety nets could spike structural unemployment. Policymakers are tasked with finding a rhythm that capitalizes on innovative perks while minimizing labor disruptions.
Governments have a crucial responsibility in shaping the evolving dynamics between enterprises and the workforce in this era of technological change. This equilibrium, often termed the "social contract", seeks to strike a balance between corporate and worker interests through monitoring and regulations. However, with automation on the rise, the power dynamics have shifted, and labor now has diminished leverage in negotiations. Adapting regulations and support systems to align with tech advancements is a pressing policy conundrum. The relevance of the traditional social contract in our digital age remains debatable.
The apprehension of workers regarding AI's impact on jobs is valid. Yet, many experts advise caution, noting that broad-brush forecasts of job extinction may be exaggerated or lack depth. That said, the potential risks, particularly for jobs susceptible to automation, can't be overlooked. Although technology will render some roles redundant, it'll also pave the way for novel opportunities. Ensuring a seamless transition, backed by updated educational initiatives, employer-independent benefits, and fresh alliances among governments, businesses, and educational institutions, is imperative.
Instead of descending into a tech-fueled dystopia, we stand on the brink of a new age marked by heightened productivity, innovation, and employment driven by technology. Realizing this potential demands forward-thinking and active policies to ensure a fair transition. Workers need to be armed with relevant skills and granted access to fresh opportunities. The economic windfalls of technology should be equitably distributed, rather than being concentrated among tech magnates. Redefining the 21st-century social contract will dictate whether society at large reaps the rewards of automation. The power to shape this future lies with the populace and their elected representatives, who must craft policies that allocate technology's benefits for communal welfare.
Key insights
Key insights
📰 The initial claim that AI-generated content would not replace writers and editors has proven to be inaccurate, raising concerns about the future of human journalists in the face of advancing AI technology.
🔄 The changing world and job displacement is a process that has happened before, such as the collapse of the Rust Belt in America, and it is important to understand and interpret these changes.
🌍 Economic compaction, driven by globalism and neoliberalism, is leading to rising income inequality, wage stagnation, and increased cost of living, resulting in everyone getting squeezed.
💰 AI is predicted to be cheaper than human labor, which could result in the subversion of global labor markets and further economic compaction.
🌍 The pursuit of efficiency through cost-cutting measures like outsourcing and automation can create a global race to the bottom, where companies struggle to remain economically competitive.
💥 The current models of capitalism and neoliberalism will simply stop functioning eventually due to the downward death spiral of companies competing with AI, leading to job implosion.
💔 "Humans simply just cannot compete with the machines and this leads to my final point social contract."
The rise of AI and automation poses a threat to job opportunities and economic stability, necessitating a new social contract that includes government intervention.
The rise of AI and automation poses a threat to job opportunities and economic stability, necessitating a new social contract that includes government intervention.
Gizmodo recently laid off their Spanish-speaking editorial staff and replaced them with AI translators, despite previous claims that AI-generated content would not replace human writers and editors.
Jobs dislocation is the formal economic term for the process of job destruction and creation happening globally, as seen in the collapse of the Rust Belt and the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to countries like China and India.
Economic compaction, a result of globalism and neoliberalism, is the squeezing of the middle class due to rising income inequality, wage stagnation, globalization, and increased cost of living.
AI will replace human labor, leading to a lack of job opportunities and downward economic pressure.
Competition between businesses forces them to seek efficiency gains through cost-cutting measures like outsourcing and automation, leading to a race to the bottom and thinning profit margins.
Companies competing with AI will lead to many sectors collapsing, challenging the current models of capitalism and job creation, as technology primarily lowers costs and reallocates capital rather than creating new jobs.
Unemployment levels are currently low, but we need to prepare for the possibility of AI layoffs in the future.
Humans cannot compete with machines in the long run, leading to the need for a new social contract where the government mediates between business and all citizens, not just labor.
This is the most amazing time to be alive. I can't believe we are progressing so fast. I really love your updates. I can't wait to see what the future holds. (I tend to be an optimist) Thank you!
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I do appreciate the longer form videos, but these short form ones have been really great additions. Very easy to find a couple minutes to fit a compact update/discussion in.
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As an engineering leader, I keep telling the engineers, nobody is safe from what we are about to see. Great work.
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Very sad and scary to see how limited the amount of content regarding this is. I just don’t understand how everyone is not looking into this.
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nothing but gold coming from the red shirt legend as always ..... Godspeed to anyone who's job is in danger
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FEEDBACK I'm a huge follower of your videos, and I've been having a little trouble catching up because of length, so I mostly watch them on weekends. But this format allows me to watch them within the week. GOOD JOB. Thank you.
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I’m extremely excited about the future of AI but I’m also really afraid of the transition period. My gut tells me well probably have to suffer a period of dystopia before things level out
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Great explanation and thanks for keeping me ahead of the situation
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With all this news I feel like we’re living one year in a month. I can imagine that our children wouldn’t have their mom and dad as ‘parents’, more like ‘grandparents’, in a sense that it would be impossible to catch up with a progress soon enough if you not born during this times
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i work as a copywriter, which includes being a translator, and i translate backend and frontend content of a website in seven languages, to begin with. i use gpt-4 for most of the text i produce. the only downside is proofreading as a native speaker, which i dont think gpt-4 is good enough to do yet.
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I agree we need to be talking about the social contract. My understanding of human nature is that most people won't care (or even *realize*) until the problems start to become protracted. Though getting the message out lots and early only helps.
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Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 Gizmodo laid off Spanish-speaking editorial staff for AI translators, despite earlier AI content trial promises. 01:24 "Jobs dislocation" is the term for job destruction due to globalization. 03:02 AI and automation will lead to "economic compaction" and job scarcity. 04:11 Technology doesn't always create new jobs; it can thin profit margins and challenge economic models. 05:58 ️ Labor's power diminishes as AI reduces the need for human labor; calls for a reevaluation of the social contract between government, business, and citizens. Made with HARPA AI
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In all honesty, garbage content outlets like Gizmodo have read like poor AI for a while now. So this is probably a massive upgrade for them, lol. Sadder still, I used to enjoy reading The New Yorker and more respectable newspapers that still seemed to try to write and edit, such as WaPo and WSJ, but even those turned to garbage maybe 10 years ago. It's kind of how I latched onto independent YouTube channels, not only for the ease of consumption (though I don't mind reading real words on a page) but mainly for the effort in composition and delivery.
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This is going to be very painful for millions of people for decades before we finally move our economic system to something else. That’ll be a variable picture globally as well. It’s not one big bang so as you say - ‘eventually’. It’s just going to be quite dystopian in the meantime.
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I work a corporate job at a Fortune 15 company and I can assure you that generative AI is not on most leaders' radar right now. It'll be interesting to see when large companies shift focus to this as a means to cut cost because most large firms are reactionary when it comes to disruptive tech like this. Great content as always
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If something is not done, we are heading towards oligarchy, feudalism, and overall civil discontent. We must self-organize and develop decentralized communities and markets.
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Have you looked at the global market’s potential shift when some countries (those that already are not so strongly wedded to capitalism) try alternative models? For example, if the EU makes many goods and services the equivalent of public utilities as costs and margins approach a limit of zero, what will happen in the other markets in response to this?
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The only fear I have is for the stability of society as workers learn and are guided to new opportunities. We need governments to look at reconfiguring society to bring us through the Great Transition in one piece.
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Every other day I see articles of companies laying off employees and AI is mentioned alongside the word "efficiency"
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The general public is mostly unaware about what's about to go down, and I think we'll see major societal unrest once reality sets in.
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I'm an ML/AI/Data Engineer -- that is I write Python and SQL and build ML models (Classifiers, Regressions, NLP) for clients. I'm pretty good with Data Warehousing applications (building them) as well. That said, I feel like I'm always behind in my field. Always new tools, e.g. Hello Nov 2022 and everyone loses their minds for LLMs and soon I have to learn GPT models in addition to being pretty good with BERT Models and more "common" NLP work. And then there's LangChain and so on. That said, what are the top 10 most secure jobs going for the next 5 years? I want to think I should be safe, but wanted to get a feel for the crowd on this one. Or any thought leaders who seem to have a good handle on jobs. I got kids I have to support, so can't take unemployment time.
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Vote accordingly. Right. I think government is going to drag its feet on this for as long as possible. They will wait until they are either forced to act or simply be replaced by a new political party that’s comprised of humans and early super intelligence. I feel it will be the latter.
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With the next election coming up I'm sure it won't be long until AI will become a popular debatable topic amongst everyone, and if not it should at least gain momentum
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I also know a famous YouTuber who has gone down from 2 editors and 3 researchers to one of each because of AI.
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You cannot stop progress and technology. It’s inevitable…you need to pivot
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The problem with getting Government to change on this point is that it defies the economic reality for the Government to do so. It puts the Government in an untenable position, and the incentives simply do not work for it in the current paradigm. For example, money is used to buy votes via the expenditures on advertising in democracy-based governments. When that money pools into fewer hands, and the ordinary (ex-middle class, now poor) citizens have no money to spend on products, let alone political campaigns, then all the political incentives align towards those who do have that money, meaning the tiny handful of CEOs whose businesses skyrocket into international monopoly powers over time as the economic consolidation process takes place. Telling the Government not to align with the most productive (streamlined & profitable) businesses and negotiate on behalf of the now disenfranchised citizens (who we can see living in absolute squalor by the tens of thousands in all major US cities now) is not necessarily realistic. These are issues that were supposed to be thought through, btw, ten or twenty years ago and planned for. The planning might have resulted in any number of global solutions to the advent of extreme-automation, including, possibly, a rational and well functioning UBI system, or the curtailment of certain technologies in order to slow down, or eliminate the disenfranchisement process. I know this issue was discussed in the comments section of MIT Technology Review Magazine a number of times between 2006 and 2009, and those who pointed out the inevitable conclusions (where we are now) were at the time summarily pooh-poohed by those who couldn't imagine it would take less than 100 years to get here. Others, more insightfully, saw ahead, and realized that planning would absolutely be required to manage this transition, but that planning failed to happen. We lurched forward, instead, towards chaos. Which is where we are heading now, and are already beginning to see the effects all around us. These effects are not exclusively caused by automation, but automation is a fast-growing (exponentially) factor that must be taken into account, as you point out. What the solution is may be at this point significantly harder to derive than it would have been 20 years ago. I do not see anyone in positions of power currently so much as attempting to deal with the issue. Everyone instead is focused on partisan bickering. Meanwhile, we are seeing civilization being strained to the point of collapse. Those who would like to see the collapse averted ought to pool resources, and begin to look far beyond partisan politics to seek solutions. Otherwise, one has every right to be frightened out of their wits by what is coming. Our political leadership has failed us for 20 some-odd years and the consequences are becoming ever more evident.
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My question is who’s gonna be next on the chopping block when GPT-5 and Gemini comes out
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in the short term you hope you are wrong but in the long term (utopia!! people free to peruse their interests in arts, hobbies, sports, music, creativity, learning) you hope you are right -- the videos I want to see is how we get from here to there without chaos, poverty, war, revolution.... what's the best plan for individuals (and not just in the USA) and for governments.
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Jobs will go of course - but at the end of the day, if nobody can afford Iphones, then nobody will make them. Industry, it appears, will soon be able to create more or less everything without employing anyone. However, if there are no workers then there are no consumers and without consumers, industry can't function.
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On the other hand: humans are not omniscient psychopaths. That "race to the bottom" has a countervailing force by the fact that buying from a company which treats its employees well, and the ability to buy local/buy from people you know is a value in of itself. You can already see a form of this with the people who are strongly against anything AI generated. "Human Made" is going to be a label for decades to come, and every slip up and automatic car crash will be proof that those who resist it are right. (And in many ways they will be, as we discover more and more qualities of being human that the AI cannot replicate at the same level, or not implement properly and all at once.)
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What would be your estimate timeline/year for UBI on all western countries?
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Unless we change our means of exchange for valuable service while finding work that gives meaning
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Who ever see this. I encourage you to share it far and wide. Humanity meet its citizens.
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If the govt is no longer negotiating between labor (proletariat) and the business, the role of the government diminishes too, and that's the setting of cyberpunk (business rules all, and by business i mean megacorps).
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Isn't the growing discussion of UBI a beginning yo renegotiating the (current) social contract?
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Like he said at 67 I stand a good chance of still seeing the wild changes ahead
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It remains to be seen as to whether people will allow super intelligent robots to walk among us. It sounds both economically and physically like suicide to me, to be honest.
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Does it mean their articles went from crap to crap squared or did the level actually improved?
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Scary and exciting. Thanks for the video.
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Rather than UBI, we are more likely to reach Zero/Marginal Cost of Living technologies first and should in fact be doing everything we can to accelerate it. Open source technology is the most important factor. We need to get anything and everything into the hands of as many people as possible that can replace the need for an income - personal automated food production, electricity, shelter, internet, etc. Vertical indoor farming, renewable off grid electricity, 3D printing, and so forth. Turn every home into a fully selfźsustainimg biohabitat for a human and then give one to every human.
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thanks mate. Always good stuff.
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Most important point @ 6:20 - who is thinking about the new social contract? Damnation or deliverance hinges on this.
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This video is a goldmine of tips and tricks!
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There is a huge difference between what is going on between AI automation of low end white collar labor and shipping blue collar jobs overseas, the jobs getting automated by AI have nearly zero fundamentals while blue collar labor is largely not going to be replaced by AI any time soon, this is further exaggerated by the huge content bubble cause by people using the internet more during the pandemic which is now predictably going away, these kind of effects have the exact opposite effect on margins, wages, and worker productivity, these tools greatly increase worker productivity and the excess capacity of savings from inefficient labor that does get replaced go to businesses with fundamentals, like small businesses and blue collar jobs, AI is not going to replace your local electrician or plumber anytime soon, but it will tend to send more business their way as it increases worker productivity and wages, the only businesses AI is a problem for are businesses that do better when the majority of society is doing worse, like the businesses require interest rates to be low to raise capital, and the upper middle class managers who tend to work in these businesses, this is a predictable cycle, where all the conventional things get saturated, money then goes into tech looking to get better margins, then a big breakthrough is made which increases the productivity of society as a whole, then money goes back into the general economy as it has better margins again, until it starts all over, forever, this is actually one the best features of capitalism at work, the coming years are going to see a resurgence of blue collar wages and lower asset prices, allowing people to actually afford houses and families, yes there will be a period of adjustment, but net net, getting rid of redundant upper middle class white collar jobs is much better for society as a whole and will lead to better lives for everyone
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Science is honest or it is not science. Like science officer Spock one can only report your honest assessment.
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All my sheep friends be like "Why don't you get a perm job, way more secure and with company benefits"
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I assume this will fare similar to the industrial revolution where suddenly pretty big chunks of certain workforces becomes useless in waves like in the cloth industry. Since the social contract unfortunately probably won't be renegotiated since the lobbyists are actively manipulating politics in their monopolistic favor, this will widen the gap between a shrinking super elite and mass "useless" workforce without benefit to everyone as wished. Aslong the A.I.s are still limited in their autonomy there is a slim chance for real humanistic progress however if A.I. is ready for autonomus mass control by "drone police", the super elite can grasp power and its a capitalistic Northkorea for everyone at home.
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Well said!
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I didn't know Gizmodo was still a thing.
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Plz discuss when and how Universal Basic Income can be rolled out !!!
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If we had a nationally funded Job Guarantee (JG) the response would be, "Mass layoffs? Meh. So what? Who cares?" The JG would mean anyone who wants it could get a socially beneficial fulfilling job at a living wage (around $60k/yr with full benefits). How to pay for it? If you understand MMT, then you know that it can easily be paid for. Unemployment and poverty are not inescapable traps, they're a political choice. All we have to do is make a different choice and then Voila! No more unemployment and poverty. And we have a stable, robust, green, humane economy. Public "debt" = Private surplus. National taxes do not fund national federal spending.
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lthe layoffs from AI have been happening for like 10 years, albeit slowly. What we're seeing now and will see over the next 2-3 years are just larger.
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AI translators are horrible. I practice Portuguese and my instructor always knows when I cheated and used a translator because there's always some horrible grammar and mistakes.
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they deserve it for not to adapt
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Interesting idea u end the vid with: Govt as mediator between Private Enterprise and All Citizens.
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Humans vote. If the pain is high enough, humans will vote to protect their jobs, even if it means being uncompetitive to countries that have unrestricted AI. UBI is a pipe dream. Considering the massive levels of social unrest that unrestricted AI would produce, any competitive edge those countries enjoy will be very short lived. AI is going to be one of the most regulated industries in the world once the elites get organized. My dad once told me a story.. an agricultural specialist from the west visited china many years ago, he was in the fields with the communist leader and remarked that there were now great machines that could replace hundreds of field laborers and the communist leader responded... oh I know, but then what would I do with all the people? No way massive job loss will be tolerated because it will be evident that retraining skills would not reap any safer ground. AI, like nukes, is end game purple epics. They get special treatment.
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I'm a builder. At the moment I am in the process of completing a natural stone house , four bedrooms. I dug the foundations after levelling the site. Laid the foundations and then built up to ground level for the timber frame. I got joiners in to erect the kit and then I erected a scaffold in order to put the roof on. I tiled the roof including cutting in the valleys and the ridges. Next, I started the build which included natural stone quoins that of course have to be plumbed. The natural stone walls were built as random rubble. When that was completed the scaffold was removed and cleared from site. Then the groundworks began drains, roads, etc. I'm sure you get the idea. Any robot that could do all of that is still light years away. When that robot arrives. It will be a completely different world.
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3900 jobs lost to ai last may
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A dystopia looms over us all. Im predicting a Cyberpunk style AI controlled internet that humans can no longer interact with.
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Man, I cannot wait for the day when we won't have to work for a living anymore. I fuccking hate working.
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What do you think about the government passing its duties down on citizens since everyone can have The Always Right Machine in their pocket? Then only the judicial power and institutions should be somehow kept by some rule keeper authority. I believe that it may "justify in words of our current social contract" the shift to basically free education and healthcare since almost every person is the government and therefore allowed to these social benefits.
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Waiting for that social contract any day now... Technology does 'create' jobs (or whatever you want to call it). It's just that those jobs generally have much steeper skill set requirements, and fewer of them are needed. One example here is the mobile app market. Brand new market launching approximately in the early 2000s. New jobs! Yay! But to be a mobile app developer, you need 5 years of software dev experience minimum. Other jobs in that space such as UX design have comparable requirements.
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We knew this was going to happen these greedy bastard Well we will see how this will happen
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That sucks, but it's inevitable and history has taught us that every technology disruption forces people out of jobs. The choices we're left with are to fight tooth and nail for the status quo, or to develop new marketable skills. All of those displaced Spanish translators now have an opportunity to develop their own AI-enabled translation agencies. It sucks, but that's the direction where we're headed.
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If most services are provided by government ie your point that it will become unprofitable for business to provide services in many sectors then their is essentially no labor and no business, so the social contract is between citizens and . . .
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it's a bit naïve to imagine we want/could change our social contract before things happen, just look at climate warming, and other dangerous risks we are facing. You idealize human nature, you seem to ignore our evolutionary nature (that we aren't very smart nor cooperative by nature, but selfish short term like every living being made of genes, even if some of us learned to improve, most of us remains rather primitive, some of course more than others)
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it is the responsibility of the labour person to be good, capable and of use, if they don't even try to be of use, business people can't be to blame, and that's what I always see, I don't see incredibly talented people that try their hardest to be the best losing their jobs, I see people that have jobs that shouldn't exist anymore and don't care a single f to better themselves losing their jobs, and I can't feel bad for that
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Everything has happened as you predicted Lord Vader.
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SPECIESM: laying off humans in favor of AI
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What do people expect. The whole point of a business/ corporation/ company is to make money/ profit. And cost cutting and automation is one great way of doing that. Why would they pay humans to do a job if a machine can do it better, faster and indefinitely for free? Eventually over the course of the next 5 years to 2028, there will be a lot of job loss due to AI. People need to accept it and get over it. Learn another skill and and transition to another career.
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