We are in a period where jobs are at risk.
This is a controversial statement yet it is something, if we look for the green sprouts, that is already on the rise. Granted, at the moment, it is miniscule, but this brings into question the matter of time.
Each day, technology improves, increasing the amount of tasks a machine can do better than a human.
We are potentially embarking upon another area where we see the tentacles expanding.
The guild representing workers at the NY Times decided to stage a strike on Election Day. This was threatened as a negotiation ploy for a better contract.
Here we have another instance of suicide. Many will take exception to that but the list is growing longer. What we are seeing is the Luddites of today, even if they do not realize it.
The Luddites fought technology...and lost.
We saw the unions in Hollywood go on strike. What happened there? The industry, as we know it, was already in the process of being decimated. This only added to the carnage.
At the same time, the automotive industry is also going through a transition. Stellanits and Volkswagon are companies that recently signed new contracts with workers. These companies are in battles for their lives.
While there are a lot of company missteps, the biggest factor is technological disruption to the point where the industries themselves are changing.
Obviously, the world of news has been changing for decades.
The CEO of Perplexity, Aravind Srinivas, responded to the situation with this:
When there was pushback, this was what Srinivas iterated:
“the offer was not to ‘replace’ journalists or engineers with AI but to provide technical infra support on a high-traffic day.”
To be fair, I think this is a tech worker strike and not the journalists. That said, this statement is more of the rhetorical statements we always hear in these situations.
Companies are known for claiming the technology is not meant to replace workers, only "assist them in their jobs". This is true right up to the point where companies can lay off the workers.
Ultimately, what is said does not matter. Technology is deflationary which means jobs go away. Those who work in industries being disrupted end up finding themselves on the unemployment line.
We no longer have typing pools since the copy machine came out. There are no more elevator operators. Switchboards were automated decades ago. People are not at the counter renting you a video for the evening. Nobody is developing your photographs.
In fact. the video rental and film development industry disappeared. So did long distance phone service.
Newspapers got crushed in the early 2000s. The Internet completely decimated that industry. To its credit, the New York Times has positioned itself well. It probably has more paid subscribers than any other traditional newspaper in the US.
That said, things are heating up. Generative AI is going to be writing the articles for us. It is a reality that we will see the bulk of this content being done by computers. There could still be a market for human generated pieces but it will be more contracted than today.
From a business standpoint, these entities are going to have to compete with those putting out content at a fraction of the cost. This is the major problem. Companies are going to face extinction. It is what happens when industries get disrupted.
The change in distribution was the first major wave. What we are seeing is the advent of the second wave: AI.
Will Perplexity be able to handle what the tech workers do? I have no idea. That point wasn't made clear by the CEO. However, do not think for a second that companies are not out there working on solutions that handle that end of the industry also.
Once the wolf enters the henhouse, everything gets eaten.
It might not be there yet but it is certainly knocking at the door.
