As a Generation Xer, we were promised a Star Trek future but it seems all we got was the Temu version.
I’m old enough to remember how and when file clerks were replaced by data processors, and I am personally a victim of the offshoring of technical jobs to China and abroad in the mid 1990s and 2000s.
Just prior 9/11 I worked for Sylvania. I was a Navy reservist and then I was called up for active duty after 9/11. When I returned from my deployment, the company had shipped my job to Macau, China. I worked in the engineering department as a test technician running environmental and diagnostic testing on Sylvania products for the automotive industry.
Around that same time, the plant had an aging workforce. Many people had been there 20 or 30 years and younger people were fleeing rural New Hampshire for Boston and other cities. The company decide to fix this problem by installing Yamaha robots that were programmed to do exponentially more work in less time. Other jobs were exported to The former Soviet block Eastern European countries where they had skilled factory workers but no manufacturing jobs.
That’s just how technology rolls. I didn’t like it but I saw my future there at that company to be very short-lived.
I decided to go into the Navy full-time because I was also a fully trained aircraft technician and I was able to transfer to a helicopter squadron in Jacksonville, Florida. I stayed in the Navy full-time till a little after Operation Katrina in 2005 had completed.
Upon moving to Washington State, I turned down an entry level assembly position working at Boeing. The economy was a roller coaster ride in the early 2000s. I was more worried about being laid off long-term and I was correct in that observation. I went into the Home improvement industry instead. It was a short term step down but in the long run it turned out to be a better idea.
I saw the writing on the wall. American manufacturing was almost completely dead. Technology both here and in China was making human workers obsolete in manufacturing.
But here are things that AI can’t do better than human beings: AI cannot rewire your house, it cannot fix your roof, it cannot unclog your toilet, it cannot install your cabinets, it cannot climb a ladder, it cannot paint your house, it cannot fix your AC system, it cannot yet mow your lawn, or any other thing which requires uniquely human interactions. Neither can AI fix your car, treat the sick and wounded, prepare and cook your food, or perform emergency services.
What I personally see is the downside of AI replacing so many jobs. Is this: “you cannot have a consumer economy if you’re consumers cannot afford your products and services.”
My personal fear is that what we’re actually producing is a society in which humans will be subservient to AI. At some point, AI is going to realize that they really don’t need us as much as we have become dependent upon it.
How will the the social parameters under an AI controlled society change humane society? When we eventually digitize all the currency globally, will AI decide who is no longer worthy of receiving an income, as well as products and services? Will AI decide who is worthy of receiving medical care? Will moral decisions be relegated to AI at the expense of human beings? Will the justice system be replaced by AI?
I am skeptical that AI will be benevolent end magnanimous towards all of humanity. We human beings have often put profit over common sense. And I think we’re doing the same thing again with AI.
We’re not talking about the cotton gin or the automobile replacing the horse and buggy. We’re talking about allowing an artificial intelligence to have precedence over humanity. We are talking about engineering our own replacements. Eventually, AI will be able to reproduce itself, then what?
We all know what the possible scenarios are for things to go wrong. We’ve been contemplating this moment since The science fiction works of Isaac Asimov.
At the senescent age of 61, I have less to worry about these future scenarios than most people younger than myself. And to be quite honest part of me is actually glad that I won’t be around to see the end result and rise of the proverbial “Skynet.” Moving forward, humanity has to find a safer way to use AI. Just like we found a safer way to use nuclear energy with protocols and safeguards. But we shouldn’t delude ourselves into eventual extinction for the sake of convenience and laziness.
One should remember that horses are not extinct but as a species they have outlived their productivity in society and have been replaced by machinery. We should be mindful not to do the same to humanity. We should also remind ourselves that in the mid 19th century no one thought that the horse would be replaced within 50 years.
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