GenAI Is Like a Flesh-Eating Bacterium
(draft) How this wave of innovation isn't like the others.
Before diving in, a declaration: I love what Generative AI is capable of doing, and am optimistic we can figure out how to use it intelligently.
The huge wave of innovation around Generative AI has led to many conjectures about how it will affect employment. Opinions range from GenAI just being a "normal" technology (so don't worry!), to it heralding the advent of Fully Automated Luxury Communism (less likely than pigs flying), to GenAI catalyzing a general economic meltdown.
It's this last extreme possibility that has me worried, for several reasons. The reason I'll cover here is that the GenAI revolution isn't like previous revolutions.
There are always new jobs!
In the 90s, I got a cold call from a researcher who was investigating the future of paper. When we talked, Adina Levin, who became a good friend, proceeded to ask me great questions, which I tried to answer to the best my perspective allowed. Each time I thought she was done asking questions, she'd ask another good one.
Our conversation made me notice that the "paperless society" was a bit of a mirage on the horizon: every time we'd wipe out one use of paper (sent a paper check recently?), another would pop up. If you look at the Amazonification of shopping, you'll wish you'd invested in cardboard.
Conventional wisdom is that every prior wave of automation or innovation wiped out some jobs, but created new ones. Cars obsoleted blacksmiths (and many other trades), but brought gas stations, auto repair shops and more. Airlines wiped out rail and ship travel (well, in the US), but took us farther, faster than ever, while employing quite a few people. The printing press wiped out scribes, but certainly fed many new industries, plus a few wars and revolutions. Electric lights wiped out lamplighters, candle makers and a few whalers, but ushered in a transformative wave of industralization and allowed us to turn night back into day.
This time is different
The thing that's different this time is that when GenAI masters a task — say consolidating regional sales spreadsheets and writing a summary report — that task disappears into the machine. It no longer needs to be done by humans, though someone should check the results. But this automation doesn't spawn a new task to offset the work loss.
GenAI "eats" tasks the way that necrotizing fasciitis eats human flesh. Actually, the metaphor is memorable but imperfect: it turns out the bacteria that we call flesh-eating actually secrete toxins that kill off human cells, making a very deadly mess. No chewing involved. But I bet the metaphor stays with you a while.
As GenAI spreads unchecked through organizations,
When AI achieves parity with an average worker on a given task, the only things keeping it from being automated now are practicalities like: Do we have the time to do the automation? Can we proof the outcomes?
And each task that gets automated shifts the balance of people's job descriptions.
GenAI Automates Tasks, Not Jobs (so far)
It feels almost cliché to cite Taleb’s Black Swan these days, but you may remember that he describes how every day is great for the turkey up until Thanksgiving time. He just doesn’t see it coming. I have a feeling this is one of those moments for us.
John Henry, with complications
In the race between humans and machine intelligence, machine intelligence has huge advantages. Humans, as they age, get a bit smarter, but also get more expensive. They want raises. They are hard to manage. They earn longer vacations. Machine intelligence just gets faster cheaper better.
For years, well before the advent of GenAI, senior executives have been assiduous in their efforts to get rid of full-time human employees. From zero-hour contracts to turning employees into "independent contractors," inescapable part-time status, contingent faculty in higher education, to Business Process Reengineering (ah, remember the 90s?), the trend is everywhere.
Now there's a fancy new power tool on deck.
There are several juicy nuggets I'm leaving for future posts:
- How should we rearrange work?
- Might we use AI to augment workers, instead of replacing them?
- How will workers move "up" the knowledge chain?
Conclusion here.
#futureofwork #dangersofAI
This article is cross-posted on Substack here, Medium here and LinkedIn here. It's also here in my Brain.