The number 1 question I get whenever I tell anyone that I write about AI is this: “What do you think about AI taking jobs away?” Well, I wrote an edition of Future Telescope dedicated solely to this topic, and thought it would be a good idea to repost it.
Here goes!
My “Creating with AI” and “AI Art Showcase” posts were about using AI tools to tell a story. I conducted this experiment to show you how these tools are suddenly turning Steve Jobs’ vision into reality.
Which specific Steve Jobs vision you ask?
This one. About computers being bicycles for the mind. While this interview is quite lengthy, this scene from the Danny Boyle Steve Jobs biopic (titled, what else, “Steve Jobs”), is awesome. Michael Fassbender just nails it:
I think this mindset applies better to AI now. It is a true bicycle for the mind. And that was what I wanted to show you - use this bicycle and tell your stories to the world! Better yet - find a story you want to share with the world. It’s all here for you to use!
1. Bicycles didn’t eat up our feet
The number one fear on the mind of anyone who starts thinking about AI is - man, this thing is going to take so many jobs away!
But let’s look at what
over at
has to say about this:
Timothy is not worried. He sees through the fog. After all, he has been looking at technology from a critical lens for more than a decade and has seen all the trends come and go. He has also seen what stuck and became mainstream. And he saw that the world became all the better for it.
2. But what do you think, Punit?
The analogy I use the most to think about this is as follows:
It’s useless to try to project what will happen in the future without looking at the past. And the past holds countless examples of humanity using tools. Tools that helped us reduce the burden we put on our bodies.
For example - there was once a time when we used to plough fields with our hands and some basic tools. We would probably have needed 3 to 4 humans to do the job that we eventually found 1 ox to be completely capable of doing. How do I know? Well, I asked ChatGPT haha.
And here’s what it told me:
Well reasoned, ChatGPT! By the way, here’s a disclaimer:
Back to the point -
So, we replaced the work of 3-4 humans by one human and one ox. So if you knew how to tend to an ox, and manage it to plough a field, you would probably still have a job. If you just knew how to plough fields using your hands, you would probably also still have a job as you could find employment in those farms that didn’t use oxen. But eventually, because this was a more productive way of delivering output, successive generations would learn this new technology and humanity as a whole would know how to make more output on a farm and bother less humans.
The ox does what the human used to. The human learns to take care of the ox and do something else with the free time. Like invent electricity for example.
3. IRL
All around us, technology has proven to be the ox in our farms. It has taken up the load of ploughing the field, but we also take care of it just like we take care of our farm animals. We feed and rest farm animals, just like we charge our laptops and buy broadband internet. We are more productive as a society and not engaged in menial tasks like digging up a field or remembering multiplication tables.
If all of our existing tech is equivalent to farm animals, the latest wave of AI tools are tractors. All we have to do is learn to operate tractors. And in a generation or two, those of us who farm, will learn. And like
argues in his article linked above, there are many jobs that only humans will ever be able to do. They will continue being so until the next tech revolution comes along.
This machine doesn’t work on petroleum but on data. This machine gets better so much faster over time. And this machine may possibly take over our world, who knows.
But what I do know is, that in a capitalist society, where generating value is the name of the game, no sane CEO would see a world where there is more productivity possible per employee and say - “Hey, how about I maintain my organization at the same amount of output and productivity. How about I fire everyone because I can generate the same amount of revenue with less people! What a bright idea!”
No. The sane CEOs will look at this and say “Let’s hire more people who know how to maximize productivity using these tools and take our company to the next level!”
I know this because growth is the best-known lever to generate value. And a capitalist society has value generation as its imperative.
4. Catalogue
Jobs are not going anywhere. Some types of jobs probably are. It’s time to make sure you stay in demand by leveraging these productivity-maximizer tools.
That’s why I made the animated short story. I made something in 45 minutes that would once take days. Will you?
That's all I have for the twenty first draft. Thanks!
Great points and something a lot of us are exploring as well. A lot of artists are scared but they were also scared 200 years ago with photography and used nearly the same arguments and language then as they are now.
Your ox example is great and now a tractor with one driver can do what 500 oxen and 200 men did 100 years ago. Yet there are still jobs.
The key, as you capture is to look at what makes your work valuable and find ways to not be algorithmized away.
https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/ai-isnt-killing-artists