In Western society, the phenomenon is described by Thomas Piketty and Amory Gethin, of the Paris School of economics, when they document the gradual disappearance of political representation of the interests of the working and lower-middle classes in stark contrast to the number of members of that class in society. Piketty and Gethin prove that this class is too easily replaceable, unorganized, not well-off and therefore useless for politicians.
Moreover, the desire of this social class is for “it to be like it used to be”, where their positions were socially respected and well paid, which firstly is unlikely to return and secondly politically and economically a program of return and obsolescence is not something that can be actively exploited socially or politically. That is why only anti-system forces seize on these challenges and do not hesitate to offer preservation of the status quo, not bothering that it is no longer possible today.
But with the advent of artificial intelligence, the situation is changing. The new changes in the labour market threaten even the most educated, people with university degrees, who were supposed to be immune to market changes. If artificial intelligence replaces graphic designers, writers, analysts, and even doctor-diagnostics, it will take jobs away from people who have devoted a significant portion of their lives to self-employment, who have been in the labor market for a shorter period of time than the average worker, who may be saddled with real (student loans) or moral debts (to their parents), and who had considerable hope of earning a superior income. However, this is beginning to disappear. Soon it will no longer be enough to be a well-educated graphic designer and probably a mediocre medical diagnostician or a good lawyer.
Yet these are the professions that drive politics today. In the US, graduating from law school is the best stepping stone to a super-standard income or a political career. In the Czech Republic, a law degree, together with a medical position and, somewhat unusually, a teaching position, is a good start for a political career. Also, three (of the nine) post-war German chancellors had a law degree, three others studied political science, and Angela Merkel (a physicist) in particular broke from tradition. Also, half of the German presidents were lawyers. The situation is similar in France, where the post of prime minister has been occupied mainly by lawyers or graduates of the political science institute SciencesPo or ENA. Also, four out of fourteen Polish post-revolutionary prime ministers were lawyers.
What will happen when artificial intelligence starts to displace jobs that now have strong political representation? Will these jobs be eliminated as easily as when globalisation outsourced workers’ jobs to Asia? Do you really need a lawyer to write a contract when it will be written just as well by an AI and, moreover, in most cases, by the counterparty’s AI? And will you really be willing to pay a substantial premium for human operators?
According to a Goldman Sachs analysis, nearly half of legal activity in the US can be taken over by AI. This will further widen the income scissors among lawyers in the US, with great lawyers taking on average three times the income of ordinary lawyers. Only the best will win jobs against AI. But what about the rest?
In the long run, AI will surely become the boon that automated weaving machines have become. In the short term, however, it has the potential to destabilise political and social structures and thereby significantly change the direction of human civilisation. I devoted a large part of my book Myths and Hopes of the Digital World to this topic, and a year later I see this problem as increasingly urgent and pressing.
Could this reflection have been the reason why someone decided to raise their hand to remove Sam Altman as head of OpenAI and attempt to return the company to a less collisionist social trajectory? They say maybe. We don’t know.
And that’s one of the bad lessons to be learned from the events surrounding OpenAI: it was probably not just Sam Altman who was being honest, but the entire OpenAI leadership. At least about the reasons that led to Altman’s removal. And that’s not exactly reassuring with all the uncertainty surrounding the impact of AI on society. It doesn’t seem like those in charge are the honest and/or responsible and smart ones…
Originally published on Medium on March 7, 2024.
