Worry. Worry

As with most technology, the problem that many people appear to have with generative automation isn't the technology itself; it's the idea that it's being deployed as a weapon against them by other people.

The United States is perhaps the worst place in the world for generative automation, because it's a society where circles of care tend to be small. If the negative consequences from the rollout of some or another technology don't land on the individual, their family or their friends, it's not of much concern. As is common, "not my problem" equates to "not a problem."

And I think that this is what's leading to the current wave of anxiety in the white-collar workforce. Blue-collar communities that have survived their own waves of downsizing, and the increased unemployment that came with it, aren't going to stand up for the same people who showed, by in large, little sympathy for them. And the investor class tends to see every dollar that goes to labor as a direct hit to their broader financial goals; and are willing to bet that enough of a customer base will remain for companies that layoffs will translate directly into increased returns.

And so people in technology are learning the lesson that so many other previously have learned; the United States believes that it can thrive even when fairly large segments of the population are barely (or not at all) getting by. Sure, the effect of ubiquitous automation may be an economic collapse that results in a repeat of the New Deal, but given the federal government's current willingness to fund subsidies with debt, that may not be as simple as people think it is.

Tech Tied

A snippet, from a LinkedIn post...

[Amazon] Quick: "Rima. If I stopped working tomorrow, what would you do first?"
Me: [long pause]

This is one of the things that I've never really understood about some people's relationship to technology. It's one thing to ask people how they would keep in contact with distant contacts without telephony... for most people, telephones (in general, not just cellular phones) have been around their entire lives; they've literally never known a time when one couldn't simply pick up the phone and call someone.

As much as I understand the Worldwide Director for Data & AI Go-To-Market at Amazon being a generative automation booster, the idea that she would have literally no idea how to do her job without access to a tool that she had no access to for most of her career seems very far-fetched to me. I still know how to navigate without using GPS, and can back a car into a driveway or parking space without backup cameras. These are really useful technologies, but they haven't scooped the old skills that I once used out of my brain. Granted, I'm bad at remembering telephone numbers these days, but it's not as if I couldn't tell you what I'd do if I lost access to my phonebook application.

To be fair, this is an Amazon executive advertising their product... a certain amount of hype and puffery is to be expected. But this isn't the only instance I've encountered of people positioning modern technology as the only way they can get things done, when there was a time in recent memory when they had to do otherwise. I understand the impulse to see technology as a necessity in this way, but it always stands out for me when people do.

Honestly

[Yohuru] Williams[, founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas] says it's time to have an "honest" conversation about the historical legacy of corporal punishment within the Black community. "That would be far more communal and affirmative of human dignity and the dignity of black life," he said. "Coming out of the Black Lives Matter movement, you kind of look back at this, and you go, 'We understand it from a historical standpoint.' But from a humanistic and community-centered, restorative justice practices standpoint, there's something that just doesn't sit right with me about this practice. And I think we owe it to ourselves as a community to revisit that."
D.C.-area artist turns belts into a conversation about discipline

I'm always dubious of calls for an "honest" conversation about things, mainly because the person making the call seems to appoint themselves the arbiter of what constitutes honesty. And since calls for honest conversation presuppose that the discourse to that point have been somehow dishonest, this tends to place the person into the position of somehow knowing the minds of others.

I understand Mr. Williams' viewpoint in this, but not everyone is a humanist, community-centric believer in the tenets of restorative justice. Accordingly, they're likely to have a different understanding of corporal punishment and its effects on the broader community. While I understand that the practice of corporal punishment doesn't sit right with him, that doesn't create an obligation for the community at large to come to an understanding that does sit well with him. Or that the current understanding is not an honest one.

There's nothing wrong with advocating for one's position. But I'm not a fan of the idea that it's the only genuine way of looking that things.

Unneighborly

According to the Wall Street Journal, State Farm sales agents are up in arms over a scheme to reduce their compensation and benefits, now that State Farm has lost the title of premier auto insurer to Progressive.

I don't blame them.

I used to be a State Farm customer. I was with them for many years.

One day, my car was in the parking lot of a local drugstore, when some yahoo hit it and drove away. I called State Farm and was told to use their online claims tool. Which I did. A week went by, with no response. In the meantime, I learned that I really needed to have my car fixed, because despite the fact that it ran perfectly well, the fact that it was now down a headlight and turn signal meant that it wasn't street legal.

So I called State Farm. And was told to use their online tool. I told customer service that I had. The agent looked, and, with clear surprise, told me that the company had simply dropped the ball; for reasons they couldn't explain, my report was still sitting there, waiting to be picked up.

Things went downhill from there. If someone had told me in advance how poorly things would have gone, I wouldn't have believed them. It was an unmitigated disaster. And completely unexpected, given that State Farm wasn't just some random online-only insurance startup.

And so I switched insurers. My State Farm agent, who I really liked, sent me a letter, asking me to come back, and promising me a discount on premiums. I felt badly for him; none of what happened was remotely his fault, yet he was the one expected to grovel. And I told him: what I was looking for was from someone for State Farm corporate to get on the phone and say that they hadn't met expectations. One mistake can be chalked up to human error. When literally nothing works as promised, there's a process problem that needs to be fixed.

I understand State Farm forcing cuts on agents, due to falling revenues. But when I stopped buying insurance through them, it wasn't due to premium rates; it was the impression that I couldn't be sure that I would get the services I was paying for. I shopped around when I switched companies, and the rates were pretty much all the same; the only real way to reduce what I was paying was to drop certain coverage. Given this, I suspect that I'm not the only person who didn't find State Farm to be good value for money. Making the agents take it on the chin won't fix that.

Hot Coffee

Taken in a Seattle-area Starbucks. (Where else?)

One thing that I've never taken the time to learn is image-manipulation software. I'm pretty sure that Photoshop could accentuate the steam rising from the white tumbler pretty easily. Come to think of it, I suspect that if I knew my camera well, I could have made the steam stand out simply by engaging the proper settings. But it's reasonably visible as it is, and that's good enough for my needs.