Notes on the aI Revolution
When John Kennedy was president, a song declared on the radio that automation made the factory go. Over the past two hundred years, automation has made a great many things go, and an even greater number of things go away. We are too used to it to notice it. Certainly no one minds it.
But a new wave of automation is rising, and it holds a threat. Humanity has adjusted comfortably to machines performing our physical labor. But as artificial intelligence races forward, machines are performing intellectual labor, too.
In truth, computers were pressed into that service long ago; think of Word checking our sentences, or Excel running the calculation and filling out the box. AI is not new in performing mental tasks, but it is more: more speed and knowledge, more versatility and accuracy.
More and more. And what is the line between a tool and a worker, between being given a task and taking a job? Automation makes the farm and the factory go. What will happen if it makes the office go, too? In the AI revolution, what will be shuffled off into obsolescence? More importantly—who will be?
Chatbots and auto-attendants show the beginning of the replacement. Yet if companies have less need to hire receptionists or customer service representatives—well, how many people really want to be either one?
The folk tale of John Henry has too much rose-colored sentiment. No wants to spend their lives hammering away on rock. No one wishes they were out in the fields, hacking at the earth, or down in the mines with a lantern and a pick-axe. It was hard for John Henry to lay down his hammer, as obsolete in the new age, and leave the steam-powered drill to it. But it was good for humanity.
There is always loss in the change and pain in the transition. On the other side of the Industrial Revolution, we are far better off than those who toiled their lives away and were lucky to get a decent meal in recompense. Perhaps, on the other side of the AI Revolution, we will likewise come to a better place.
And perhaps not. Maybe we will stagnate in an economy where unemployment is always high and opportunities are always few. Maybe we will drift in an inhuman society where even our teachers and doctors are machines.
Maybe, maybe …
Note: This is the first of a six-part series, “Notes on the AI Revolution.” The pieces are planned to be published two weeks apart. The series will also be published on Substack, where you may subscribe to receive notifications.
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