By Marc W. Polite
“No longer do our lives depend upon the soil, the sun, the rain, or the wind; we live by the grace of jobs and the brutal logic of jobs.” – Richard Wright
Artificial Intelligence is changing all of our lives rapidly. No aspect of modern life is safe from the disruptive application of machine language learning. Whether it is making it more difficult for writers to secure paid writing opportunities, or autonomous food delivery robots supplanting some human delivery people, the so called gig economy is already feeling the pressure.
Not satisfied with disrupting the supplemental income of working people, the implementation of AI by its proponents is also making a deleterious impact upon regular everyday jobs in a widening array of industries. Generative AI is being used in health care, retail, the tech sector, and administrative office applications. We are being told from multiple angles that this is our inevitable future, and we have little choice to accept this new reality. If we do not, we are sure to be “left behind” as relics.
Let’s explore an aspect of this implementation for a moment. Why is it happening? Who is behind the AI push? If one looks closely, it is a cabal of technocrats. Companies like Meta, Nvidia, Google and Microsoft are investing billions into this technology. Simultaneously, Big Tech is also enacting mass layoffs. What is at play here, and in every other implementation of automation/AI is the economic imperative of capitalism to do anything to maximize their profit margins. From the vantage point of the balance sheet of the big companies, efficiency beats keeping people employed. It is about cold, hard numbers.
Why pay cashiers if you can install self check out kiosks? Why pay stock workers when you can deploy autonomous inventory robots? Why hire a pizza delivery person when you can lease a drone to deliver it instead? It is utilizing the latest technology to increase profits. No sick days or health insurance is needed for a drone or robot. It is an example of what Karl Marx referred to as dead labor, which is the result of past human labor embodied in capital, taking the form of machinery, tools and infrastructure. It is being exalted over living labor from human beings, who must sell our labor power to live. Late stage capitalism is marching us all towards a future with a lot less jobs. The brutal logic of jobs that Wright noted still haunts us today. The difference here, is that it takes shape as the ruling class using the most modern methods to make even more work disappear.
With this being our current reality, is there any way to fight back? Should workers stand idly by while our means of living are taken away from us? Some have begun to say, absolutely not. Last year, dock workers went on strike, with one of their key demands being around automation replacement of jobs. Recently, DC 37 has been raising awareness on the implementation of AI. These are good starts. However, more is necessary, because the forces behind AI will not relent. The overall question becomes.. knowing the threats, is American labor up to the task?