I appreciate your advice to avoid knee-jerk reactions (despite the jerks who own, control, and promote this technology). The tech bros are rolling out AI faster than boulders down a mountainside—and the rest of us are living in the valley below.
I recently attended a public lecture at my local university by Carl Bergstrom, a professor at the University of Washington. He’s the coauthor of a book and open online course, “Calling Bullshit,” about disinformation and AI (https://callingbullshit.org). Among other things, improving our bullshit detectors will have to be on our to-do list.
If AI can replace workers....why not the C-suite? No more bonuses, parachutes, wealth concentration. Publicly owned companies run by a benevolent AI instead of greedy sociopaths.
....Probably just a pipe dream or an AI hallucination though.
“That’s easy. This is disaster planning. You hope for the best and plan for the worst. Uncertainty over whether a hurricane will have zero impact on you or destroy your city should not prevent you from taking steps to minimize as much potential damage as possible.“
This article is the best I’ve ever seen about where things stand on AI and what we must do. First point is that workers need a union. Then safety net, taxes and regulation. No silver bullets but common sense solutions. Bravo
This piece is great and I agree that the changes it outlines are needed whether ai fulfills the grandest prophecies or not.
As a high level software engineer seeing how ai tools have been getting steadily better (which is not to validate the claims of the boosters and hucksters), I have had to concede that the previous contention that it's "just spicy autocomplete that can't write the most basic code" is obsolete. We're still figuring out the contours of what AI can do well, but it's not "nothing". This makes predicting the harms it will cause very difficult.
Well done (as usual, but here particularly) at getting to the heart if it:
“Our current nonexistent regulatory apparatus around AI is similar to having just invented nuclear weapons and not yet having written any rules about who can make them or what they can do with them”
And: “You just need common sense to see the direction this is going.”
Exactly why recent history bodes most dire for how this will be handled- the concentrations of wealth and power are making it their priority to insulate themselves from any common sense/greater good regulation and oversight, and systematically dismantle any that already exist, creating a kind of political dominance where they can continue to do whatever they want (colonize the moon? Sure! Let Earth starve!) The intent of those making these decisions -to essentially regulate themselves- clearly is to just hoard everything. I hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Well done, Hamilton! Back to basics. Core values & principles, which, if allowed to drive policy, would help humanity survive, if not thrive. Unfortunately, most of our ruling elite and corporate monarchs have neither.
Many thanks for this. You are right: we (definitely I) can't keep trying to predict what will come of this, but there are things we can do to make a meaningful change, and you lay out what those things are very clearly. Much appreciated.
tl;dr: No, we should not be protecting jobs or building up unions whose sole purpose is... to protect jobs. We should instead be pivoting capitalism to protect PEOPLE.
---
I respectfully disagree with your assertion that one of the appropriate responses is to increase the membership/power of unions. If we believe that AI will be making a wide swath of jobs literally obsolete, then I believe we'd be much better off doing the hard work of implementing a post-work society.
For example, I'd argue that the profession of trucking should be utterly taken over by autonomous vehicles BECAUSE OVER A MILLION PEOPLE DIE *every. single. year* from auto-accidents... a huge portion of those from trucks!
Sorry not sorry for the all-caps there, just as I'm not sorry in noting I'd like the Teamsters -- who are actively lobbying against (and lying about) autonomous vehicles -- to simply fade away.
Again, let's protect people, not jobs, because otherwise we're optimizing for the wrong thing. How many people are shouting "I wish I could work more hours and more years in my life!" after all?!
You fail to mention that genAI is entirely based on the theft of creative work. This tech is busy destroying the work of filmmakers, writers, artists, composers, poets, et al, in real time. Unless we want a world so completely dumbed down by repetitive slop, we should abolish genAI. Why have we allowed a few tech bros to colonize and plagiarize the work of millions?
In terms to your suggestions for a wider safety net, more unions and more government regulation of the AI industry, who are you expecting to facilitate these changes? Neither political party has proposed any legislation reigning in AI abuses and the Trump administration has partnered with the fascist tech bros who are actively funding his reign of terror. AI and crypto are also funding multiple races across the country.
The abuses of AI are already legion; nonconsensual porn, deepfakes used to destroy our shared sense of reality, unhealthy dependence on chatbots (some of which has lead to suicide), the theft of our privacy and the rising tide of surveillance and the massive theft of our water, land and resources to power this control. Recently, AI guided sinus surgery has lead to catastrophic injuries.
None of this is inevitable. We have the power to stop the takeover of our lives by this insidious technology, much of which is being pushed on us without our consent.
since we still live in capitalism, profit maximization and security for the ruling class are primary drivers of AI. Humans will be easier to control and more expendable when this system is mass-trained and deployed. Resistance will become harder the more its deployed into our schools, shopping centers and right into out living rooms. NO to Ring, Alexa, automated license plate readers, facial recognition at TSA, cameras and mics everywhere. Palestine is the testing laboratory for how AI surveillance can pacify and decimate resistant groups. Thanks for waking us up to this, Hamilton!
IBM announced they'd replace 7,800 back-office jobs with AI. A year later, they'd actually replaced about 200—and hired 8,000 people in other roles. Chegg lost 48% of its stock value after saying ChatGPT was hurting their business, then quietly reported that revenue had barely changed. The AI narrative is doing more work than the AI.
Certainly, forewarned is forearmed. Preparation and planning for consequences is always best practice. It is encouraging to see communities pushing back against AI data centers. People have already figured out these installations do not create jobs, but will consume vast amounts of energy and fresh water, which will make these essential commodities become unaffordable for many working people.
Any consideration of the future of AI must include the economics of AI. While there has been enormous investment in the compute needed to support AI, apparently the only market for the product is related to mass surveillance contracts from various governments. But even that revenue stream can't offset sunk investment costs. The AI bubble has been propped up, so far, by the various billionaires essentially paying each other to take in each others' laundry. That's not a viable business plan. Investment without a revenue/profit source can't succeed. The best, most well researched writer on this subject is Ed Zitron.
Slightly off topic Mr. Nolan, but your reference to political tribalism and Wall Street gave me cause to think just how interesting conversations between yourself and Matt Stoller might be. Do you read any of his always insightful (sometimes partially paywalled) anti-mononopoly writings? https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/trump-antitrust-chief-ousted-by-ticketmaster
I appreciate your advice to avoid knee-jerk reactions (despite the jerks who own, control, and promote this technology). The tech bros are rolling out AI faster than boulders down a mountainside—and the rest of us are living in the valley below.
I recently attended a public lecture at my local university by Carl Bergstrom, a professor at the University of Washington. He’s the coauthor of a book and open online course, “Calling Bullshit,” about disinformation and AI (https://callingbullshit.org). Among other things, improving our bullshit detectors will have to be on our to-do list.
Thanks yet again for the thoughtful analysis.
If AI can replace workers....why not the C-suite? No more bonuses, parachutes, wealth concentration. Publicly owned companies run by a benevolent AI instead of greedy sociopaths.
....Probably just a pipe dream or an AI hallucination though.
Yes.
https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/automate-the-ceos
Really excellent! Esp:
“That’s easy. This is disaster planning. You hope for the best and plan for the worst. Uncertainty over whether a hurricane will have zero impact on you or destroy your city should not prevent you from taking steps to minimize as much potential damage as possible.“
This article is the best I’ve ever seen about where things stand on AI and what we must do. First point is that workers need a union. Then safety net, taxes and regulation. No silver bullets but common sense solutions. Bravo
This piece is great and I agree that the changes it outlines are needed whether ai fulfills the grandest prophecies or not.
As a high level software engineer seeing how ai tools have been getting steadily better (which is not to validate the claims of the boosters and hucksters), I have had to concede that the previous contention that it's "just spicy autocomplete that can't write the most basic code" is obsolete. We're still figuring out the contours of what AI can do well, but it's not "nothing". This makes predicting the harms it will cause very difficult.
Well done (as usual, but here particularly) at getting to the heart if it:
“Our current nonexistent regulatory apparatus around AI is similar to having just invented nuclear weapons and not yet having written any rules about who can make them or what they can do with them”
And: “You just need common sense to see the direction this is going.”
Exactly why recent history bodes most dire for how this will be handled- the concentrations of wealth and power are making it their priority to insulate themselves from any common sense/greater good regulation and oversight, and systematically dismantle any that already exist, creating a kind of political dominance where they can continue to do whatever they want (colonize the moon? Sure! Let Earth starve!) The intent of those making these decisions -to essentially regulate themselves- clearly is to just hoard everything. I hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Well done, Hamilton! Back to basics. Core values & principles, which, if allowed to drive policy, would help humanity survive, if not thrive. Unfortunately, most of our ruling elite and corporate monarchs have neither.
Brilliant essay.
Many thanks for this. You are right: we (definitely I) can't keep trying to predict what will come of this, but there are things we can do to make a meaningful change, and you lay out what those things are very clearly. Much appreciated.
tl;dr: No, we should not be protecting jobs or building up unions whose sole purpose is... to protect jobs. We should instead be pivoting capitalism to protect PEOPLE.
---
I respectfully disagree with your assertion that one of the appropriate responses is to increase the membership/power of unions. If we believe that AI will be making a wide swath of jobs literally obsolete, then I believe we'd be much better off doing the hard work of implementing a post-work society.
For example, I'd argue that the profession of trucking should be utterly taken over by autonomous vehicles BECAUSE OVER A MILLION PEOPLE DIE *every. single. year* from auto-accidents... a huge portion of those from trucks!
Sorry not sorry for the all-caps there, just as I'm not sorry in noting I'd like the Teamsters -- who are actively lobbying against (and lying about) autonomous vehicles -- to simply fade away.
Again, let's protect people, not jobs, because otherwise we're optimizing for the wrong thing. How many people are shouting "I wish I could work more hours and more years in my life!" after all?!
What motivates a CEO to detail all the worst case scenarios of their own technology? And then… do nothing?
You fail to mention that genAI is entirely based on the theft of creative work. This tech is busy destroying the work of filmmakers, writers, artists, composers, poets, et al, in real time. Unless we want a world so completely dumbed down by repetitive slop, we should abolish genAI. Why have we allowed a few tech bros to colonize and plagiarize the work of millions?
In terms to your suggestions for a wider safety net, more unions and more government regulation of the AI industry, who are you expecting to facilitate these changes? Neither political party has proposed any legislation reigning in AI abuses and the Trump administration has partnered with the fascist tech bros who are actively funding his reign of terror. AI and crypto are also funding multiple races across the country.
The abuses of AI are already legion; nonconsensual porn, deepfakes used to destroy our shared sense of reality, unhealthy dependence on chatbots (some of which has lead to suicide), the theft of our privacy and the rising tide of surveillance and the massive theft of our water, land and resources to power this control. Recently, AI guided sinus surgery has lead to catastrophic injuries.
None of this is inevitable. We have the power to stop the takeover of our lives by this insidious technology, much of which is being pushed on us without our consent.
since we still live in capitalism, profit maximization and security for the ruling class are primary drivers of AI. Humans will be easier to control and more expendable when this system is mass-trained and deployed. Resistance will become harder the more its deployed into our schools, shopping centers and right into out living rooms. NO to Ring, Alexa, automated license plate readers, facial recognition at TSA, cameras and mics everywhere. Palestine is the testing laboratory for how AI surveillance can pacify and decimate resistant groups. Thanks for waking us up to this, Hamilton!
IBM announced they'd replace 7,800 back-office jobs with AI. A year later, they'd actually replaced about 200—and hired 8,000 people in other roles. Chegg lost 48% of its stock value after saying ChatGPT was hurting their business, then quietly reported that revenue had barely changed. The AI narrative is doing more work than the AI.
Certainly, forewarned is forearmed. Preparation and planning for consequences is always best practice. It is encouraging to see communities pushing back against AI data centers. People have already figured out these installations do not create jobs, but will consume vast amounts of energy and fresh water, which will make these essential commodities become unaffordable for many working people.
Any consideration of the future of AI must include the economics of AI. While there has been enormous investment in the compute needed to support AI, apparently the only market for the product is related to mass surveillance contracts from various governments. But even that revenue stream can't offset sunk investment costs. The AI bubble has been propped up, so far, by the various billionaires essentially paying each other to take in each others' laundry. That's not a viable business plan. Investment without a revenue/profit source can't succeed. The best, most well researched writer on this subject is Ed Zitron.
https://www.wheresyoured.at/
Slightly off topic Mr. Nolan, but your reference to political tribalism and Wall Street gave me cause to think just how interesting conversations between yourself and Matt Stoller might be. Do you read any of his always insightful (sometimes partially paywalled) anti-mononopoly writings? https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/trump-antitrust-chief-ousted-by-ticketmaster