Algorithms, robots: they’re changing the meaning of work, and fast
If the rapid spread of generative algorithms since last November is striking for one thing, it is that they have upturned one of the assumptions associated with automation.
The consensus used to be that the first jobs to be replaced by machines would be blue collar or the four D jobs (Dull, Dangerous, Dirty and Demeaning). But he emergence of Dall-E, ChatGPT and a whole army of other types of algorithms suggests that another D needs to be added to the list: desk.
Since the emergence of these algorithms, tens of thousands of people have already been laid off in industries such as technology, always the first to embrace efficiency, applying the principle that more could now be done with less, or that one employee assisted by a co-pilot or algorithmic assistant could do the work previously done by several people, whether they were supervising, managing data, or writing lines of code.
There’s a whiff of social justice here: less-skilled workers, and therefore more vulnerable, are the least threatened by the appearance of a disruptive technology, and instead, those who suffer the impact are their better educated and better paid counterparts, who have never got their hands dirty and instead sit comfortably in front of computer screens.
