Submitted by Steven Kaszab
“Most Men and Women will grow up loving their servitude and will never dream of revolution” – Brave New world
The inevitable has happened, massive layoffs within the Artificial Intelligence sector continue – Amazon, Citi, Dell and others have shown their colors through a constant and unchanging process of employment. Attract the very best for a position in A.I. Development, get the I & T’s crossed achieving their goal of A.I. Mastery. Then they layoff the very people who made it happen.
I feel a need to ask these technological and computer geeks why they do it? After all the A.I. Process is doing its best to replace the very people technology depends upon.
During the period of historic development known as “the Industrial Revolution” millions of people were side lined by the very technologies they once thought would make their lives better. Manual labor was matched to that of corporate servitude as machines replaced skilled labor and all its human elements. Today A.I. has become the flavor of the decade and those same laborers, laboring to establish the very same process that will replace them are crying foul ball.
The international marketplace is running head on towards an A.I. revolution where certain principals will rule the day.
1. What labor once did can be replaced by machine.
2. A.I. controlled programs and machinery is cheaper than human labor.
3. A.I. can be more securely monetized than human labor.
4. A.I. has no human elements to cost the user( no healthcare, safety, pensions costs).
5. A.I. will not demand labor and human rights which cost the corporate world lots of $.
6. A.I. does as it has been programmed self correcting. No emotion, self seeking or demands.
7. A.I. can develop machinery that lasts long periods. Human languish and break down over time.
8. A.I. has no emotional, psychological, moral or ethical code unless so programmed.
To the corporate world human beings have shown themselves to be imperfect, costly, misbehaving, wasteful, selfishly demanding, self centered in their needs and often unmanageable. This hodgepodge of humanity has shown itself to be anti-capitalist, anti-corporate and ultimately anti-authoritarian. Capitalism has been and always will be set in principals of authoritarianism, exploitive management and the class system. There will always be a “Boss”, underlings and captains of industry that manipulate, transform and shape the laborer. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence and its application the stresses of humanity can be partially replaced.
A.I. is seen by the Middle and working Class as a technology that was suppose to make the world and our workplace a better place. Instead it is replacing many of us, putting thousands onto the mountain of unemployables. Aldous Huxley once said “perhaps this world is another planets Hell”. Is he correct?
Long ago a group of rebels fought the torrents of inhumanity that the industrial revolution brought with it. These Luddites destroyed machinery, beating those who established this seemingly inhuman economic process. They lost their effort to keep humanity in the process of economic change. Machines won the day because greed out paced human charity.
If you had a chance to get the perfect job, with a excellent salary, benefits and promised long term future would you take it? What if it were developing a process or system that could challenge humanity and perhaps threaten your fellow planet dwellers? Would you take that job?
Most of humanity has an infinite capacity to take everything for granted. Our freedoms, rights and privileges are being threatened daily by our own doing and permission given. Think before one acts and always look to the future before making a decision. Is A.I. a step towards the establishment of our eventual Hell?
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