AI might be creating a permanent underclass' but it's the makers of the tech bubble who are replaceable | Van Badham

"Bad news, baby. The New Yorker reports the rapid advance of AI in the workplace will create a permanent underclass of everyone not already hitched to the AI train. The prediction comes from OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner, who claims AI will reach or exceed human capacity by 2027. Once it develops capacity to innovate, AI superintelligence will supersede even a need for its own programmers and then wipe out the jobs done by everyone else."

"Nate Soares, winner of most sunshine in book title and co-author of AI critique If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies suggests people should not be banking on work in the long term. Math tutors, cinematographers, brand strategists and journalists are quoted by the New Yorker, freaking out. The consolation here is that if you are among those panicking about being forced into the permanent underclass, you are already in it."

"My own family were agrarian stablehands before industrialisation drove them to work in the Glasgow shipyards. After industrial decline there, they migrated south into retail clerkery. My dad worked in betting shops that have been replaced by apps. My mum was an admin assistant whose tasks you can now run from an iPhone. So if this column is replaced by the burps of a machine programmed to deliver cultural trend-based leftist snark, I'll be following family tradition."

Rapid AI progress is predicted to reach or exceed human capability within a few years, enabling AI to innovate independently and displace programmers along with many other professions. Occupations such as math tutors, cinematographers, brand strategists and journalists face large-scale disruption and potential job loss. Concentration of wealth through inheritance and growing opportunity gaps will exacerbate inequality and entrench a permanent underclass among those not already integrated with AI. Historical technological revolutions repeatedly destroyed industries and reshaped family employment across generations. Organized labor and unionization are proposed as primary collective remedies to manage displacement and protect worker interests.

Read at www.theguardian.com