We have just seen white collar layoffs at UPS & Amazon.
So apparently some corporate executives view AI as good enough to begin shedding middle management jobs.
Thus far unemployment numbers have not increased. How long will that be the case as corporate execs figure AI decimation of white collar professional jobs will juice profits & stock returns. Just a new version of off shoring and automation that very negatively affected the working class. Now it’s the professional class turn.
Thus AI will further damage the career and income prospects of college educated workers eventually disrupting the flow of students to universities affecting their finances.
AI leads to further thinning of the already increasingly precarious middle class will also greatly weaken social stability, particularly at a time when social safety nets are being stressed.
I can forsee a boom in bodyguard services for the ultra wealthy. A dozen or so bodyguards very well be insufficient in societal upheaval.
Already there is increasing support for socialism in the young college students as they are saddled with educational debt and increased housing expense. Now their careers are at stake!
The disaffected working class elected the current president in 2016. I wonder who might arise to appeal to the struggling middle class. I really don’t see anyone rising above in the establishment political class addressing this problem.
Is this the Peter Tuchin predicted, political instability in USA & Europe due to overproduction of elites and rising public debt?
It seems AI will have macroeconomic as well as societal upheaval consequences.
Luckily for me, at age 74 1/2 years of age, the full consequences likely won’t arrive until I expire. I hope.
We are the same age, but my ardent hope is to live will into the crisis time, living safely in rural Mexico, blowing raspberries at the nasty news I expect will come, in between eating fruits from my orchard soaked in tequila.
But only if I get much better at achieving emotional equilibria via meditation or marijuana or magic mushrooms or….
The Pentagon has ordered thousands of specialized National Guard personnel to complete civil unrest mission training over the next several months, an indication that the Trump administration’s effort to send uniformed military forces into urban centers — once reserved for extraordinary emergencies — could become the norm.
I mean - maybe? Or maybe AI will simply change what types of things white collar workers actually do?
I’m an old phart, so I remember that similar (or at least rhyming) concerns were raised about the brand-new thing called The Internet back in the day. “What Will We Do For Work?” Time magazine asked, once this Series of Tubes ends up eliminating all those white collar jobs in health care and business through the massive efficiencies and innovations? When all of the service jobs in banking and travel agencies and mail carrying and customer service disappear?
Yeah, well, the internet ended up eliminating some of those jobs - but not a lot of them. And it ended up making a whole lot more new jobs. So while the internet ended up destroying travel agents’ livelihoods, it’s created vastly more jobs that folks couldn’t even imagine in the 1990’s.
“And then on your headcount question, you know, what I would tell you is the announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven and it’s not even really AI driven, not right now at least. It really, it’s culture. And if you grow as fast as we did for several years, you know, the size of businesses, the number of people, the number of locations, the types of businesses you’re in, you end up with a lot more people than what you had before and you end up with a lot more layers. And when that happens, you know, sometimes without realizing it, you can weaken the ownership of the people that you have who are doing the actual work and who own most of the two way door decisions, the ones that should be made quickly and right at the front line. And it can lead to slowing you down. And as a leadership team, we are committed to operating like the world’s largest startup. And that means removing layers. It means increasing the amount of ownership that people have and it means inventing and moving quickly. And I don’t know if there’s ever been a time in the history of Amazon or maybe business in general with the technology transformation happening right now, where it’s important to be lean, it’s important to be flat, and it’s important to move fast. And that’s what we’re going to do.”
I myself take those words with a pinch of salt, because I firmly believe they are more driven by financials and also the company forcing their employees to leverage more AI, and increase productivity. But, it is also true they are eliminating layers. At least in AWS, they are expecting their managers to be technical, and not just people managers. If you look at what their L6, or L7 getting paid, higher productivity demand is natural.
Jack Welch would fire/layoff 10% of the GE workforce every year.
Result?
1)Employees sucking up to the person judging their performance.
2)Strike fear into employees to perform.
That 10% firing is just a portion of the Welch 20/70/10 management strategy.
Top 20%: Reward and promote
Middle 70%: Develop and manage
Bottom 10%: Fire
Well that strategy does cut layers of corporate bureaucracy to create a leaner, more agile, and perhaps a more successful enterprise.
It doesn’t do much for corporate loyalty.
I wonder how many current CEOs have adopted the Jack Welch style of management?
But it gets his name in print. Some of these guys have big egos.
Jeane Dixon used to make many predictions. She is remembered for the ones she got right.
Close to 80% of the US economy is service, and that percentage continues to grow over time.
You think AI is going to replace hair cutters at Great Clips, waitresses at Olive Garden, landscapers, nail salons, preachers and pastors, schoolteachers (and principals), police and firefighters, the salespeople at the GAP and the guys giving advice in the Home Depot aisles?
Most places are going to have cashiers, even if AI could do it, because they’re Mom & Pops. Doctors & nurses gonna be around for a long time, even with automation and robots. Speaking of which, laborers, freight, stock, and material movers are still going to have jobs for the foreseeable future, and the local bodega isn ‘t likely to be buying Optimus robots to restock the shelves anytime soon.
While not all of those are terrific jobs, there are some which will last. I’m pretty sure the concept of “the boss” and/or “the owner” isn’t going away just thanks to AI, so there will bhe some of those too. A lot, actually.
Which is not to say that AI won’t have an impact in lots of plasters, some predicted and some unexpected, just that the whole thing is a little loopy right now, like the predictions that “brick & mortar” was dead because of, um, “a series of tubes.”
Turns out “kitty litter by email” was not a viable concept.
