"The Era of AI Employees is Here" - God Help Us All!

 by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Dystopia is on the rise! 

First and foremost, this ad epitomizes the inhumanity, greed, amorality, and social ignorance of corporate owners. It reflects their goals to create the perfect social order for them and a dystopic future for the rest of us. 

You have to be a hollowed-out person to see this use of AI as having a positive social value or even a positive business value. Even on a practical level, it makes no sense. 

Economies are built on consumption, and consumption is fueled by cash. Increase the cash with more productive employment and/or higher wages (government infrastructure spending or government cash stimulus packages are substitutes), and the economy burns brighter. Decrease the cash with more unemployment or lower wages, and the economy smolders. 

For all the extra cash an "AI employee" saves corporate owners, the AI employee spends nothing in the marketplace. Look at this ad again. How much coffee will AI employees purchase in that store behind the sign? Notice also there are no pedestrians on the sidewalks, of course. They would contradict the message being delivered. 

Our whole economy is screwed up because economists leave out one of the most important equations... workers = consumers. 

AI contributes nothing towards the consumption of goods and services, which creates the markets. The corporate aristocracy wants a beehive society of queens, kings (drones), and AI or robot workers to serve them.  There is no room for the rest of us in that small, self-serving world. 

We, the majority, only stand a chance for a happy, productive live if we all stand together. Reject this narrative being pushed on us! Let us broaden our personal bonds with many others as we can, especially with those who not like us.  Then we can start to rebuild our democracy and our economy to serve our core social and moral values.