Labor Saving

If I'm understanding the chain of events correctly, this was posted to X, then picked up by a magazine called Edge, where someone photographed it, and then it was posted to LinkedIn.

I understand the sentiment expressed in this posting. But it illustrates one of the pitfalls of the current debate around generative automated systems (I've stopped calling them "A.I." They're not intelligent, and are a long way from being so.)

And that pitfall can be expressed as a question: Why are people who perform paid domestic labor more worthy of having their livelihoods automated away than knowledge workers? Because another good way to have more time to do art and writing is to pay someone else to do laundry and dishes.

If the general perspective on "AI" is that it should treat some groups of people as valuable, and others as expendable, then each group's fighting for its self-interest will ensure that everyone loses.

The widespread anxiety about increasing automation is the sense that it's being driven because people begrudge each other their salaries (often due to a sense of their own poverty), rather than there being more productive work than the current available labor force can manage. It's more or less a given that many investors in companies begrudge the money that is paid out in salaries, and the moment that an automated system becomes "good enough" to do passable work at lower cost, the layoffs will begin.

And so a fight in which what people are fighting for is to have their jobs preserved while others are cut, so that they can access services more cheaply will simply end in more people being laid off. Because once it's profitable to have automation do laundry, dishes, art and writing, there will be plenty of time for other chores, given the number of people who won't have to take a break to work a job.