No. of Recommendations: 5
I'm mostly retired but I still do an occasional consulting gig. My field requires knowing a little about a lot of things, and ideally a lot about some things as well. I've long held the belief that my field could never be automated or outsourced. It is just too broad.
I don't think that anymore. I mentioned in another post I've been using AI to help write reports, and it has been a big time saver. It can't replace me yet (and I've got a foot out the door anyway), but I can totally see it decimating the industry. I predict in three years the amount of human work in this industry will be at most 50% of what it is now. At most.
In his 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren," John Maynard Keynes. predicted that technological advancements would allow the workweek to shrink to just 15 hours, and that the main challenge for humanity would become how to fill their abundant leisure time (I was aware of the prediction, but used AI to look up the reference). Others have made similar predictions. So it could be that with AI vastly increasing the scope of human productivity, and therefore wealth, we will have plenty of time to enjoy our lives.
Here's the problem with that prediction: There is an immutable law of nature that says the guys at the top make all the money. AI will make the guys at the top even more filthy rich and it will be a dystopian Mad Max-like hellscape for everyone else. I'd like to think that saner heads will prevail, but they are currently arresting day laborers at Home Depot. That's how much they care about workers. If they are willing to screw a guy hoping to shovel gravel to feed his family, they'll screw anybody. Sorry paralegals.
