A new working paper authored by three Stanford researchers, titled "Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence", claims that GenAI has significantly reduced employment opportunities for individuals aged 22-25—the metaphorical "canaries" that die first. These "robust results" are supported by "large-scale evidence", including data from a large
So the author’s argument is that youth have just gone to gig work instead of traditional jobs. OK, maybe true, but first of all, this is not a good thing on its own either. And secondly, we have to consider why gig work even exists, aside from being a fresh new way to exploit workers and deny them the traditional protections of the labor market. Because there is a specific reason gig work exists right at this very transitional moment in the workforce, and I’ll give you a spoiler: It exists because of AI.
AI is going to do the same thing to gig work that gig work has already done to traditional youth employment. It represents the transitional step from traditional human labor to full automation. That’s part of the reason companies are using gig work in the first place. It makes it really easy to treat workers as instantly and transparently interchangable in an extremely efficient and flexible way. And they are going to start interchanging them not just with other gig workers, but AI drones – self driving cars, drones, and other machine infrastructure as it gets developed and matures. The flexibility allows them to absorb the impact of any issues with the technology by instantly falling back to more “human gigs” when needed, but whenever the technology becomes successful, the human jobs will just instantly evaporate as quickly as the technology can roll out, and not a single thought will ever be spared for the millions of gig working humans waiting for their phone to buzz for the next gig that will never come while looking at bills that are never going to get paid. That’s literally the goal that gig work exists to enable, it’s fundamentally designed for the AI endgame, it’s inevitably going to leave millions of people suddenly and quietly unemployed and unemployable without warning or even any official notification when it’s happening, and it’s coming sooner than we think.
And secondly, we have to consider why gig work even exists, aside from being a fresh new way to exploit workers and deny them the traditional protections of the labor market. Because there is a specific reason gig work exists right at this very transitional moment in the workforce, and I’ll give you a spoiler: It exists because of AI.
Wrong, gig work existed way before the advent of AI, even before the advent of Internet and PC. It was not uncommon that teenagers worked during the summer holidays to have money to go on holidays, to buy themself something or to pay for school or other activities.
The problem is that for some people it is the only way to work, and this was happening way before companies started to use AI for everything.
There was no tech middleman taking in part of the profit while making every other part of the transaction a net negative for everyone else though. I do agree that AI might not have much to do with it though.
So the author’s argument is that youth have just gone to gig work instead of traditional jobs. OK, maybe true, but first of all, this is not a good thing on its own either. And secondly, we have to consider why gig work even exists, aside from being a fresh new way to exploit workers and deny them the traditional protections of the labor market. Because there is a specific reason gig work exists right at this very transitional moment in the workforce, and I’ll give you a spoiler: It exists because of AI.
Considering the author is possibly the most relevant scholar on (against?) platform work, I’m quite sure he would agree with you. The article implies that AI is deskilling and displacing workers and that’s intrinsically a bad thing.
So the author’s argument is that youth have just gone to gig work instead of traditional jobs. OK, maybe true, but first of all, this is not a good thing on its own either. And secondly, we have to consider why gig work even exists, aside from being a fresh new way to exploit workers and deny them the traditional protections of the labor market. Because there is a specific reason gig work exists right at this very transitional moment in the workforce, and I’ll give you a spoiler: It exists because of AI.
AI is going to do the same thing to gig work that gig work has already done to traditional youth employment. It represents the transitional step from traditional human labor to full automation. That’s part of the reason companies are using gig work in the first place. It makes it really easy to treat workers as instantly and transparently interchangable in an extremely efficient and flexible way. And they are going to start interchanging them not just with other gig workers, but AI drones – self driving cars, drones, and other machine infrastructure as it gets developed and matures. The flexibility allows them to absorb the impact of any issues with the technology by instantly falling back to more “human gigs” when needed, but whenever the technology becomes successful, the human jobs will just instantly evaporate as quickly as the technology can roll out, and not a single thought will ever be spared for the millions of gig working humans waiting for their phone to buzz for the next gig that will never come while looking at bills that are never going to get paid. That’s literally the goal that gig work exists to enable, it’s fundamentally designed for the AI endgame, it’s inevitably going to leave millions of people suddenly and quietly unemployed and unemployable without warning or even any official notification when it’s happening, and it’s coming sooner than we think.
Wrong, gig work existed way before the advent of AI, even before the advent of Internet and PC. It was not uncommon that teenagers worked during the summer holidays to have money to go on holidays, to buy themself something or to pay for school or other activities.
The problem is that for some people it is the only way to work, and this was happening way before companies started to use AI for everything.
There was no tech middleman taking in part of the profit while making every other part of the transaction a net negative for everyone else though. I do agree that AI might not have much to do with it though.
Considering the author is possibly the most relevant scholar on (against?) platform work, I’m quite sure he would agree with you. The article implies that AI is deskilling and displacing workers and that’s intrinsically a bad thing.