The rise of artificial intelligence has many Americans on edge with anxieties about loss of privacy, nonconsensual image generation, widespread mental deterioration, and, perhaps most of all, mass layoffs. A staggering 71% of Americans fear AI could cause permanent job losses, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. But not everyone is convinced AI will destroy the job market.
“The American people are being lied to about artificial intelligence (AI),” said Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar in a recent Fox News op-ed.
“The future of AI is not an inevitability to be endured by the American people — it is for us, the American people, to shape. AI is not a divinity. It cannot snap its fingers and eliminate jobs; people will use AI to cut jobs or create them,” Sankar insisted. “AI cannot decide to oppress us; people will build AI tools that either enforce privacy and civil liberties or erode them. AI did not choose to write poems or generate pornography; people chose to build cheap consumer goods rather than genuine tools of productivity.”
Sankar is right to an extent: This technology cannot violate civil liberties or take over jobs on its own – yet. But perhaps he should take off his rose-colored glasses when it comes to the direction humanity will take it. Business owners have already shown they will choose advanced technology over human workers. Take the social media company Pinterest and the chemical manufacturer Dow: Both companies announced job cuts in January, and both said AI was at least partially to blame.
Of course, it could also be a convenient excuse to scale down. Ben May, Oxford Economics’ director of global macro research, suggested some employers may be using AI to spin layoffs as “a good news story rather than a bad one,” adding, “for example, by pointing to technological change instead of past overhiring.”
Even if that’s true for some, though, it’s impossible to ignore the breakneck speed at which artificial technology is advancing and the impact it’s already having on the American workforce. The fast-food chain Bojangles launched an AI-powered drive-thru system, with Richard Del Valle, Bojangles chief information officer, vowing to be “an aggressive, early adopter” of the technology. The drive-thru voice even has a name: “Bo-Linda.” How many workers will be displaced by Bo-Linda or similar automated assistants in the future?
According to Forbes, as many as “60% of current jobs will require significant adaptation due to AI,” and “[a]utomation and intelligent systems will become an integral part of the workplace.”
“Artificial intelligence is expected to fundamentally transform the global workforce by 2050, according to reports from PwC, McKinsey, and the World Economic Forum,” Forbes reported.
Sankar rejected the so-called “doomers” who warn the job market will be devoured by artificial intelligence, arguing AI is a tool for American workers rather than their replacement:
“The job-loss narrative is a ploy to attract investors, drive media attention and consolidate political power. The real promise of AI in the enterprise is to make the American worker 50x more productive — to unleash his taste and agency. This isn’t speculation; it’s reality.”
According to Sankar, American workers will be able to produce more thanks to AI – a change that “should” be reflected in workers’ paychecks.
“For a century, American prosperity was underwritten by a simple bargain: when the worker produces more, the worker earns more. That bargain was broken in the 1970s — not by technology, but by policy choices that stripped workers of power,” Sankar said. “We will not repeat that mistake.”
With companies citing AI as the reason for thousands of layoffs, is that “mistake” already being made? We’ll see.
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