AI & the Majority of Jobs

"They took our jobs!" -South Park

According to the IMF, 40 to 60% of jobs could disappear globally due to the influx of AI. But hey - I'm sure that's nothing to worry about. *sarcasm*

Links:

https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2024/01/16/ai-to-hit-almost-40-of-jobs-worldwide/

https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2024/01/14/ai-will-transform-the-global-economy-lets-make-sure-it-benefits-humanity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7km4EHgkQiw

https://consaracytheories.com/f/a-new-super-cycle

https://youtu.be/vz3HKkVrJE4


Links where I can be found: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/01/30/updates-housekeeping/

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/ 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter. ai.  Please forgive any typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

ai, jobs, replace, productivity, conspiracy theory, imf, happen, stoking, davos, read, overlord, replaceable, told, cnbc, tensions, inequality, january, pink slip, worse, global

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's episode, I want to talk about the ominous prediction that was made by the IMF in the early days of the WEF meeting at Davos that AI would consume 40% of jobs globally. Oh, and by the way, it will probably make inequality worse. I blogged about this at the time, because I knew what was coming. You would have people that would say we then did to conspiracy theory. We have this entire cadre of people nowadays that if if it's news they don't like if it's information they disagree with, it must automatically be a conspiracy theory. Now, if it falls in the realm of toxic optimism, toxic positivity, toxic gratitude, that's fine. If you're telling me what I want to hear, well, that's not a conspiracy theory. That's just you giving me the fact even if somebody says something that they disagree with yet did the conspiracy theory. Oh, okay. Right. So nevermind the fact that it was reported on by CNBC, which is not a fringe outlet, and this information is coming from the International Monetary Fund. It's not from the guy that hangs out at the back of the gas station chewing on Broaster chicken telling everybody that Elvis faked his own death. And he's been spotted at the local Piggly Wiggly half a dozen times. We're not in the same ballpark. So, yeah, I just I get frustrated with this crowd of people. Anything I don't like must be a conspiracy theory. Oh, okay. Sure. And then they tune out, they don't pay any attention to news that's highly relevant to their lives. Now, here's another cousin, a sister, a brother, a cousin to the ICSD conspiracy theory. Another one that's super dangerous, in my opinion, is it would just never happen to me. Okay, sure, AI might take 40% of jobs globally. It might make income inequality worse. But it would just never happen to me. I'm so fantastic. I'm so smart. What I do is so brilliant and sparkling and magnificent, that I'm not going to be replaced. Other people may have to go in the hovel, and eat their cricket burgers and disappear into virtual reality all day. But that wouldn't happen to me. What I do is so unique and so special. I'm not replaceable. I feel sorry for all the rest of you, peons and plebs, but I'm gonna be just fine. Come what may I also put that line of delusional thinking into the pot with toxic optimism, toxic positivity, everybody else might get steamrolled by what's coming. But I won't, I don't need to prepare. I don't need to think about any of this. I can just get back on Snapchat back on tick tock, I can worry about bread and circus and celebrity gossip. And I don't have to think about the job market. I'm not going to care about jobs and hiring and what's going on in the labor market. Unless and until I get a pink slip. And then I'll deal with it. Here's the thing, having that kind of attitude fly by the seat of your pants, maybe you may get maybe you don't, by the time that the company you work for is closing down. By the time you get a pink slip. By the time your boss says you've been replaced by a robot. It's too late. By definition, when the event occurs, it's too late to plan ahead. You're at the moment of crisis. I like how Lynette Zeng always says I'd rather be yours too early for something than to be a second too late. And I feel like whatever this economic crap storm is, whatever crisis be a brewing. I feel like that is really going to separate out people who paid attention from people who didn't people who prepared ahead of time, versus people who had their head in the clouds that thought, Oh, well, somebody says AI is going to replace my job. That's just a conspiracy theory, or it might replace my neighbor's job down the road, because he's nothing special. But what I do is so phenomenal that I'm not going to ever be replaced. Right? By the time you get there and you get a cold bucket of water thrown in your face, it's too late. So here we go. go loud and proud right at the beginning of this WEF meeting at Davos we get IMF warns AI to hit almost 40% of jobs worldwide and worsen overall inequality. This was published on CNBC, Monday, January the 15th. Now to revisit all of the important people go to Davos for the World Economic Forum. I'm thinking of the shining, where the proprietor the manager is giving windy and Jack a tour. And he's talking about royalty and presidents and movie stars. The jet set stayed here, even before anybody knew what a jet set was. All the best people, all the important people. Yeah, so all the important people who I'm sure think they're the best people congregate at Davos to decide what should become of the peons and plebs. And they got out front and center. Mighty fast to tell us that the IMF is warning that AI will hit almost 40% of jobs worldwide. And the TLDR key points for this article we read the IMF assess the potential impact of AI on the global labor market, and found that in most cases, AI is likely to worsen overall inequality. IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva urged policymakers to tackle this troubling trend and proactively take steps to prevent the technology from Further stoking social tensions. I'll get there in a minute. The analysis comes as business and political leaders from around the world gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and quote, yeah, all the best people, the JetSet, Barry Nelson. But the jet set before anybody even knew what the jet set was all the best people stay there, okay. Prevent the technology from Further stoking social tensions? Well, there's different ways to interpret that. One way that I interpret it is, let's give the peons and plebs the opportunity to digest this in small bits. So that nobody riots, nobody freaks the eff out. Nobody writes it just a little at a time, we move them further and further along down the pathway. And they get accustomed to this integration of AI into their daily life. Another possibility is we don't want it to fan the flames of a potential Civil War. People are already divided. We have such heated rhetoric. I imagine this will get worse, not better as we go into an election year here in the United States, a big one a presidential election. You have early numbers showing that the Orange Man is ahead on the elephant side. I don't yet know by the time that this episode is released, maybe we'll know more. I don't know. But at this point in time, as I'm sitting here recording this episode, I don't know what's going to happen with senile old man and the donkey side of things. And really, who cares? Okay, six, one half a dozen of the other. Which, which overlord? Do you want? Do you want the red overlord? Or do you want the blue overlord? Oh, well, it'd be nice if we didn't have to have either one. But that's not going to happen. There's different ways to interpret this notion of hey, look, let's don't further stoke social tensions. And we don't know if that said with fingers crossed behind the back either, because it seems like mass media and social media have done a pretty good job of doing exactly that stoking social tensions and making people more divided than perhaps they ever have been. There's a picture here on the CNBC article, and it shows a a pedestrian walking past a TATA pop up store with a poster reading the future as AI ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Sunday, January 14, is a person walking a dog going past this block that says the future is AI learn more@tcs.ai And it's got like these pretty blue and yellow colors on it. What a juxtaposition though, okay, the future is AI. And this poster that's popped up is cool. It looks cool. Looks interesting, but then we're told, hey, it's gonna probably do away with 40% of jobs worldwide. What a clown world seriously. If we scoot over to the IMF blog, I'll drop a link please check this out for yourself. We find a post that was published by Kristalina Georgieva on January 14. The title is AI will transform the global economy. Let's make sure it benefits humanity.

Sorry, the byline reads AI will affect almost 40% of jobs around the world, replacing some and complementing others. We need a careful balance of policies to tappets Putin until I will, I'm sure. In this we read. We are on the brink of a technological revolution that could jumpstart productivity. Oh god, I'm sorry. Just a second. I feel like Mark Antony you know, he's like Bear with me My heart is in the coffin bear with Caesar. Oh, geez. Jumpstart productivity. So Haven't we had this narrative shoved down our throats already? You need to get your behind back in the cube farm because productivity because togetherness we're better when we're in person together. Y'all Lolly gangers need to quit goofing off at the house refusing to come on back. Just get your behinds back here. It's for productivity. How much more productivity do people want? At some point to me, it begins to feel like squeezing blood out of a stone. And if you've ever worked in a sales capacity before you know exactly what I'm talking about, oh, you broke the sales record this month. That's fantastic. Guess how much further you could have gone. There's somebody I used to work with, I will have to be necessarily vague here. I want to protect her privacy. She was in a really tough situation where she had two family members that had fallen ill at the same time. And the onus was on her to be able to take care of those individuals as best that she could. Now she was there Monday through Friday, from eight to five, but it was a firm boundary there. I show up at eight I do my job, I focus on my job while I'm here. And then at five promptly, I have to leave because I have to go put on the caregiver hat to these family members. And she shared with me that her manager at this boss, allegedly I wasn't there. I don't know she should just share this information with me. Allegedly, this person called her aside and said, You're doing really well. And that's impressive. But if you could just give it an extra hour every day, or if you could just come in on a Saturday or Sunday. Make a few more calls, send a few more emails, get a get a bit more out there. Imagine how much you could be doing. It's never enough. I go back to my thesis that Gordon Gekko tried to tell y'all. He laid it out. Whenever bud Fox and Gordon Gekko are having their confrontation in the first Wall Street movie. He says it's not a question of enough. It's a zero sum game. Somebody wins and somebody loses. There's no enough. Bud's asking him how many mansions Can you live in? And how many yachts? Can you waterski? Behind? When is it enough? It's not a question of enough. I mean, he's telling you, the crony capitalist playbook. There is no enough, there's never going to be an adequate amount of productivity. Once you have dropped dead, and you have nothing more to give to your feudal overlords, maybe then they'll say that you gave enough and then they'll throw your carcass on a hole. And that'll be the end of it. Sorry, if that offends you. I'm just spitting it out as I see it. All right, let me start over. We are on the brink of a technological revolution that could jumpstart productivity, boost global growth and raise incomes around the world. Wait for it, wait for it. Yet, it could also replace jobs and deepen inequality. Well, which do you think is going to happen? The rapid advance of artificial intelligence has captivated the world causing both excitement and alarm and raising important questions about its potential impact on the global economy. The net effect is difficult to foresee as AI will ripple through economies in complex ways. What we can say with some confidence is that we will need to come up with a set of policies to safely leverage the vast potential of AI for the benefit of humanity in quote. Yeah, I'm thinking of that line. And if I ever lose my faith and you were staying is like breaking down things that are presented to us as being good, but then they somehow never are. I never saw a miracle of science that didn't go from a blessing to a curse. I never saw a military solution that didn't always end up as something worse. Yep, I kind of got a similar vibe about this whole thing. They also have a passage about reshaping the nature of work. In a new analysis, IMF staff examine the potential impact of AI on the global labor market. Many studies have predicted the likelihood that jobs will be replaced by AI. Yet we know that in many cases, AI is likely to complement human work. Okay, now I'm going to but it think about what we have read in this CNBC article about not stoking social tensions. We need to have a way to manage this. I mean, government regulation right If I never saw no government regulation that didn't end up with something worse, okay? And no, I'm not saying that we need to have Wall Street and the rest of the cronies be completely unbridled to do whatever the hell they want. The point I'm making here is that all of these piggies feed from the same trough. It's like letting the Fox Guard the henhouse. What the What the hell is going to happen? What do you think is going to happen? Anyway, guy could go on all day. I get mad you all and just get so angry about what's being done. And then the lack of care. Oh, and rather worry about who some celebrity is dating who some celebrity was sleeping with last week, but then they had a break up and it's like, God, who cares? Lord have mercy. Who cares? So think about this. Okay, let's let's, let's don't do anything to stoke social tensions. It seems to me a potential possibility here. Okay. That's all I'm saying. It's a possibility. It's just my opinion. And it could be wrong, a possible outcome here. This notion of it's going to complement human work. This robot, this AI program, this whatever, it's not here to supplant you. It's not here to replace you. It's here to help you. It's going to take away some of the menial tasks and the poopy stuff that you don't like in your job, so that you can do the things about your job that need the human touch, and that you enjoy doing. AI is likely to complement human work. Yeah, at first, maybe. I'll read just a little bit more, the findings are striking almost 40% of global employment is exposed to AI. Historically, automation and information technology have tended to affect routine tasks intelligence. But one of the things that sets AI apart is its ability to impact high skilled jobs. As a result, advanced economies face greater risks from Ai, but also more opportunities to leverage its benefits compared with emerging market and developing companies. In advanced economies, about 60% of jobs may be impacted by AI. Roughly half the exposed jobs may benefit from Ai integration enhancing productivity. For the other half AI applications may execute key tasks currently performed by humans, which could lower labor demand, leading to lower wages and reduced hiring. In the most extreme cases, some of these jobs may disappear. And quote, yeah, what do you think's gonna happen? Over on my nighttime podcast slash after hours blog. On January 9, I published a post titled A new supercycle because we were told on CNBC on January the eighth by a researcher at Goldman Sachs, that we're moving into a different supercycle that the most recent significant supercycle, according to him, started in the world economy in the early 1980s. And I'm like, wait a minute, is that really a time that we want to revisit? Do you remember the global recessions that happened in the early 1980s? I don't really think any sane person would say, You know what? I want another dose of that the 1982 recession, interest rates that were 20% Sign me up, let's do it. I also pointed out that last year, Harare told The Economist, this is the end of human history, the end of human dominated history, in reference to AI, and he compared it to an alien invasion, except that instead of little green Martian men, it would be aI because according to him, it's going to feel like outer space aliens have invaded the planet and everything that you know is going to be different. Except it's not outer space aliens. It's AI. He's on video. Okay, I'm going to drop a link to this video of him clearly saying these words and making these comparisons. Because you're going to have idiots in my opinion, idiots, morons and other sundry people. And this is the daytime show. I have to keep it clean. You're gonna have idiots in my opinion, like destiny is a conspiracy theory. He didn't really say that. The man is clearly on video saying it go and watch for yourself you you do not. You do not have to take my word for anything. And at the end of this blog post I write it may be a supercycle, but I don't know how comparable it'll be to the early 80s. Unless you recall the recessionary economies and what a nightmare that was. In any case, my thoughts on this are not optimistic. I get it maybe I'm just your friendly neighborhood pessimist friendly neighborhood contrarian but

I think one of the smartest things that you can do at this point, and I don't give you advice, I don't tell you what to do. I sit here and I opine for your entertainment only. You know if it were me, you and I were having a pint at the pub just sit in around two in the fat, and this topic came up, I would say, you know, if it were me, I would want to prepare, I want to have a plan B, plan C, I'd want to be thinking about what would happen. What would happen if initially I was told this AI program or this robot is here to help you, it's gonna make your job easier. At what point do you just get shoved out? At what point is it the the robot or the AI program can now do everything on its own, and for a fraction of the cost and with a fraction of the potential liabilities it takes to employ a human? So we're gonna have to let you go, here's a couple of weeks of severance pay. We wish you the best of luck, hope it works out, but by Are you prepared for a scenario like that? If you're not, if right now, you're listening to my words, and you're sort of bristling, and I know some of you will be I can feel it. I can literally feel the energy. I can feel some of you stiffening up in the back going well, it's not going to happen to me. I'm a this I'm a VAT. I'm not replaceable. Okay. Okay, maybe you're right. I hope you are. I hope to God, that you're right about that and you aren't replaceable. Here's the thing. wargame out a scenario of what if you're wrong? What would you do? How would you feed your family? How would you survive? Stay safe, stay sane, and I will see you in the next episode.

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