Replacing people with AI

“…he hasn’t hired any new humans in a year amid the company’s push to embrace AI.”

Noor Al-Sabai, “CEO Says He Hasn’t Hired Anyone in a Year as He Replaces Human Workers With AI”, Futurism, 12/14/2024

Bragging about replacing people with AI

It sounded like this CEO was bragging about replacing people with AI chatbots.

I’ve seen him before when he said that he was able to replace 700 agents with one AI chatbots or reducing about 22% of his headcount. At the same time, revenue went up despite that reduction in personnel. The latest article describes how he was able to induce his employees to utilize the AI chatbots in the face of the potential of losing their jobs.

I may be reading into his “bragging”, but I do think the CEO has a tone deafness to the idea of replacing people – 700 of them – with one AI and not suffer any revenue loss. If all of the CEO’s thought that way, think about the huge number of job losses ensuing from this attitude.

And yet, there is more.

How about an ad campaign exhorting companies to replace employees with AI employees?

An ad campaign in San Francisco is enraging people.

“Online, the reactions to the ads have been incandescent with fury. Creative Bloq called the campaign a “dystopian nightmare,” while numerous Reddit threads have lambasted the marketing. On X, formerly Twitter, one writer tweeted in response: “WTF are we doing as a species.””

Frank Landymore, “Humans Alarmed at AI Company’s “Stop Hiring Humans” Billboards”, Futurism, 12/16/2024

The CEO is a 23-year-old who put out that ad in a bid for attention. HIs thesis was that by being shocking, he could stand out from the crowd and attract eyes. And he succeeded wildly.

Here’s the final dystopian description the author feels facing us peons:

“And he’s certainly right in that regard. He’s ditched “boring,” in favor of making it loud and clear what the management class really wants: taking humans out of the equation wherever possible.

This is the enthymeme that the monoliths of the tech industry dance around and dress up with all kinds of marketing language, and for good reason. As Artisan has demonstrated, if these companies were more upfront with their intentions with AI — and their attitude towards us lowly human peons — they’d face outrage like this at every turn…”

Frank Landymore, “Humans Alarmed at AI Company’s “Stop Hiring Humans” Billboards”, Futurism, 12/16/2024

Read the article here and weep.

If not replacing humans, how about depressing wages?

Another disheartening outcome with the omnipresence of AI is the lowering of wages.

This Forbes article discusses about monopsony power: the concentration of purchasing power.

Here is how I understand monopsony power: As the frontrunner users of AI gain overwhelming productivity and profit improvements, they can start the gobble up the ailing laggards. Now there are less companies for employees to work at and they are hemmed in in both directions: from the fewer employers available and from the multiplying presence of AI in the workforce.

The combination of those two leads to purchasing power like nothing else.

This is so distressing.

“The danger is not in the future but now and the likely culprits aren’t sentient machines but businesspeople who want to make more money than ever before.”

Erik Sherman, “AI Companies Are Becoming the New Monopsonists That Will Control Work”, Forbes, 12/16/2024

Now add in the feeling surrounding the execution of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Now add to the mix of angry people cheering the assassination of a CEO with those tone-deaf CEOs giddy at the prospect of replacing people with AI and the purchasing power to severely depress wages. That is such a combustible combination.

How quickly could this situation escalate? I have no idea, but I worry that it will be sooner than we think. Because add on top of that situation the impending inflation from tariffs and from mass deportations (if the economists are correct about the outcomes and I have no doubts about their analysis) and the strutting on the national stage of two billionaires threatening to cut various government services. They admit that there will be pain for a while.