Ask just about any job seeker in the US how the labor market is doing, and you’re liable to get an earful. Months upon months of stale job growth have led to a “low-hire economy,” a situation where workers have little leverage over companies, resulting in low wage growth, a rise in freelance hires compared to full-time, and ever-worsening benefit packages.
At the same time, AI has never been buzzier. Even as real-world efficiency gains seem to be slowing to a crawl, the amount of money being spent on AI is only going up, as evidenced by mammoth data center investments and a booming stock market.
As a result, many are wondering what the relationship is between AI’s rise and labor’s stagnation. While economists like Daron Acemoglu argue that any impact AI has on workers won’t be felt for a decade — if it comes at all — tech CEOs are telling a different story: that AI is about to flip our whole world upside down.
One of the tech execs joining the chorus of AI proselytizers is Alphabet (Google) CEO Sundar Pichai, who recently pined that no job is safe — not even his own.
In a recent BBC interview, Pichai said that “AI is the most profound technology humanity is ever working on, and it has potential for extraordinary benefits, and we will have to work through societal disruption.”
Though he’s careful not to be too giddy about it — as some other tech execs have been — the Alphabet CEO is peddling a well-worn brand of AI fatalism. Basically, AI is inevitable, and it’s coming for all of our jobs whether we like it or not. Pichai, who recently became a billionaire, even believes that his role as CEO will be “one of the easier things” for AI to take over, which makes it all the more odd that he’s decided to forge ahead with the tech anyway.
“It will evolve and transition certain jobs,” he continued. “People will need to adapt, and then there will be areas where it will impact some jobs. So, as a society, I think we need to be having those conversations.”
Of course, unless you’ve been hiding out in the woods since the pandemic, you’re probably aware that AI is one of the only conversations we seem to be having at any scale. The issue isn’t so much that we’re not talking about AI, but how we’re talking about AI, and who’s framing the conversation.
Pichai, for example, as chief executive of one of the largest companies working on AI right now, has a material stake in pushing the narrative that AI is coming for everyone’s jobs. While AI surely is helping companies “gigify” some jobs like translation or software development, it’s not automating many jobs outright — an important distinction the AI boosters hope you don’t make.
A recent Business Insider analysis found that the jobs most exposed to AI automation aren’t really being impacted, though anxiety about tariffs, political uncertainty, and pandemic-era overhiring have led to “recessionary levels of job creation” throughout the economy.
So while we might have to live with the consequences of the tech industry’s brain rotting slop, AI’s effects on work aren’t a foregone conclusion. The idea that AI will destroy life as we know it is a horrible thought, of course — but with so much information assaulting us from all angles, our best bet is to trust the evidence, not the CEOs.
More on Google: Google’s AI Deletes User’s Entire Hard Drive, Issues Groveling Apology: “I Cannot Express How Sorry I Am”
The post Google CEO Says We’re All Going to Have to Suffer Through It as AI Puts Society Through the Woodchipper appeared first on Futurism.
