AI will make a VERY few people VERY rich
The new haves and have nots are coming to a town you live in real soon….
I am so conflicted.
Like all of us in technology driven industries, I use AI in my businesses so I have absolutely no moral high ground here.
But, here goes….
We are being so Matter of Fact about AI.
It is being received as simply this exciting new technology that makes those that use it more productive and shortens cycle times and squeezes every last ounce of what Humans used to do into an App run by a Bot.
Meh.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Well, as a guilty-as-sin tech developer who has been preaching and building software to accomplish those very goals for the past 30 years, I am here to tell you this is different.
I get that Excel changed Accounting and Data Analysis forever.
I get that the iPhone forever altered how we do just about everything.
I get how the Internet replaced entire industries.
I get that Social Media can be toxic and has replaced the Nightly News as our source of information and how we interact and react to it.
I get how Robotics affected manufacturing and many jobs were eliminated.
Big Blue beat Garry Kasparov at chess. Yep. I get that.
Technology rolls along and does what it does and we have welcomed much of it with open arms because at the end of the day, the notion was ultimately the improvement of human lives, creation of jobs, and freeing up bandwidth for Humans to use more of what makes us so unique.
Our Minds.
I also remember Texas Instruments releasing their first Calculators upon us in the 1970s. We did not universally agree that was a good thing. The Slide Rule Manufacturing Association was particularly upset.
Oh, and educators banned calculators at first.
Now folks don’t know the times tables, nor can they remember their home phone number. Oh wait a minute. You mean, homes don’t have phones any more? How is ET going to “phone home”.
AI is not going away and we must use it, if for no other reason than to control it.
What is disconcerting to me is the lack of any meaningful debate on AI.
AI is being used to reduce or eliminate what we should hold most dear and what separates us from the beasts and machines.
Thinking.
Crickets.
I know some crazies, that have read too much Michael Creighton or watched too many dystopian movies about how the planet was destroyed by Eagle Eye or something like that, barking about the end being near.
That is about it.
Most people on LinkedIn, our Social Media site for the sane who really just need a job, are, somewhat ironically, rather quiet about AI. If anything, most conversations on LinkedIn about AI are from a perspective of excitement about what AI can do to transform business and life into something wonderful for all.
Really?
Sorry, folks, but here is who AI will benefit the most.
The Uber Wealthy and/or soon to be Uber Wealthy thanks to AI. Many will be one and the same. Meet the new boss…same as the old boss….
Think about it.
Corning, which actually makes stuff people need, has a $26B market cap and employs 50,000 workers.
Slack, which is perpetuating and expanding tech’s reach into our lives and produces nothing but squeezing the last ounce of productivity out of the humans that built and use it, is worth $26B and has 2500 employees.
See the problem?
A Force Multiplier of 20x….as in 47,500 fewer employees to create the same market value.
We are already trending from and to a place in which tech giants can build enormous enterprises with very few jobs created, on a per employee revenue basis.
So, all that money has to go somewhere….
…..to the wealthy and soon to be much wealthier.
Now, into that scene rolls AI.
AI is a game changer yet again from that leveraged model for the very few to an even more leveraged model with fewer and fewer individuals aggregating the wealth to benefit themselves and not to create jobs. But rather to eliminate them.
AI will allow entire companies to be built with no employees. Massive wealth transfers we will willingly allow and hardly even discuss.
But, we will invest in them.
This sounds a little populist, and I suppose it is. Plus, maybe I am the only Techie out there that is even questioning all this.
That cannot be true, as Coders will be most affected. Yet, I hear very little from them on this matter. Perhaps because it presents them with a conundrum between loving the tech they built and losing their jobs to it.
I am telling every young person I come into contact with, who is at the point of selecting a career, to learn a trade. Every single one.
Learn something that can never be automated, at least in our lifetimes. Learn something that is intrinsically yours and can never be separated from you.
Like knowing how to sweat a pipe or bang a nail.
Might come in handy down the road when AI orders the CEO of McDonalds to eliminate all the counter staff…Oh, wait a minute.
All I am suggesting is that we simply have a chat about all this and not just roll over and take the AI at its word that it is here to help us…like the Government.
Now replacing Government with AI is something AI could get down with and would be good for Humans.
Just ask Chat GPT.
And maybe go back and re-watch Eagle Eye just for kicks. BTW, sci-fi often gets things right, far in advance of reality. Just ask an original Star Trek fan.
Oh, and just one final question for the deep thinkers out there:
Does AI enjoy First Amendment protections?
Asking for a Bot friend…
