Bit Over-the Top on the Hype & Pandering

Everyone has to eat but hyping your product absent a balanced exposition depreciates the effort. Further, appears you neglected to read other WEF machine-human articles that effectively state the opposite.

It’s true that in the near-term (a point you neglect to note) humans will be needed to add value to machine/AI systems. But, suggesting this has any long-term viability for anything beyond an elite few implies machines/AI somehow stop advancing or adding/coopting more human skills, which is silly.

As to you opening frame, “I believe people with grit, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit will embrace this future, rather than cling to the status quo…[or] fearing that their human skills will be devalued,” is an attempt to defy gravity.

As noted in one of my articles, Our Twilight Zone — What Comes Next, there is lot’s of happy talk and claims there’ll be plenty of good paying jobs ahead and no cause for concern because of:

• Politics — Claim is we can adjust the tax code and trade agreements to retain and create sufficient jobs to redress all workforce economic problems (e.g., Make America Great, Again).

Problem is these adjustments are inconsequential. That’s because globally, the way markets, competition and capitalist economics actually operate is completely indifferent to national political actions. Capitalism and technological innovation are agnostic forces of nature that ultimately make politics irrelevant.

• Economics — Claim is our current digital-computational era transition is similar to the transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy where sufficient new jobs were created to offset those lost.

Problem is the industrial economy was exceedingly labor intensive and transition time extremely protracted. This new economy isn’t labor intensive, and the transition so swift it can’t possibly create sufficient new jobs.

• Creativity — Claim is more people will engage in entrepreneurial and creative activities.

Problem is there’s no justification as to why entrepreneurial success rates improve (e.g., 1% over 10 years). No justification as to why arts patrons will suddenly buy a massive amount of new art work lacking known prestige asset value, or why a general public experiencing a decline in disposable income will suddenly start buying more art for art’s sake.

In the end, all these claims oscillate somewhere between wishful thinking, propaganda, self-serving rhetoric and naiveté. At best, the job and income situation ahead is more akin to the current so-called sharing economy and tech industry in general — only worse and accelerated.

Doc Huston