Person to Person

Recently, LinkedIn has been alive with sentiments like the following:

• "People will always look for human connections."
• "With AI, automation and robots replacing humans, niches will emerge where human interaction will become the next premium service."
• "Although AI might predict outcomes, only human personalities can genuinely connect on an emotional level, using empathy to navigate life's complexities."
• "In the future, people will pay to simply take a walk with another person."
• "We’re living in an age of automation, acceleration, and endless information. We scroll, we work, we survive. Some of us even thrive. But beneath the surface, there’s a hunger. For presence. For people. For something that can’t be outsourced or automated. Something like real, human connection."

And because for some people, simple aphorisms are always better coming from someone famous, this Mark Cuban quote has been making the rounds:

The AI irony is beautiful: The more artificial our world becomes, the more valuable real human interaction gets.

As with anything, not everyone is on board with this, and there has been a level of pushback to the whole situation. One poster went to far as to call it "a failure of critical thinking."

I'll admit to being something of a skeptic, myself. After all, I have a degree in Psychology, and no-one is breaking down my door to recruit me for a "real human interaction" job. Still, I think that I'd be inclined to be somewhat more charitable (I'm going soft in my old age), and instead of chalking it up to a lack of critical thinking, attribute it to grasping at hope.

A lot of people are (or at least believe they are) staring down the barrel of generative automation reducing their employability (and thus, their incomes) to, if not near (or absolute) zero, well below what they need to sustain themselves. And if artificial "general intelligence" ever comes on line, that will only make matters worse. If all people feel they have to offer others is their "real human interaction," they're going to cling the idea that this will somehow save them from job-market irrelevance, and thus, destitution. (Which I suppose is better than bitterness, guns, antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-trade sentiment.)

Because, as it has proven time and again, the population at large will dispassionately watch people beg in the streets for a 5% reduction in the Consumer Price Index. And if generative automation raises the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment above its current rate of about 4%, the United States government, at least, will dutifully adjust its definition of "full employment," decree that the extra people out of work are necessary to keep inflation under control and turn its attention elsewhere.

For the person whose one remaining viable tool is a hammer, nails are all they have to hold on to. Because it's true that hope is not a strategy; when it's all people have left, it's the strategy.

P.S.: But, for the sake of argument, let's say that Mr. Cuban and company are correct, and "real human interaction" does become more valuable. If it's all that most people can bring to the table, the supply will still far outstrip the demand. Not to mention that fact that taking a walk with another person is unskilled labor.