Kristin Tate, Artificial Intelligence and the Decline of the White Collar: Thoughts

Recently suggesting that artificial intelligence might displace "white collar" workers before it displaced "blue collar" workers performing more mobility and dexterity-demanding manual labor I had the impression that I was unlikely to see anyone arguing along similar lines in a mainstream forum anytime soon. Naturally it was a surprise to see Kristin Tate making a version of the case in The Hill.

Considering Ms. Tate's argument I find her very bullish on the prospect--more than I think is warranted. I have simply seen artificial intelligence oversold far too highly for far too long to be anything but guarded toward the more recent claims for "the coming artificial intelligence economic revolution." (Remember Ray Kurzweil back at the turn of the century? Or how profoundly the hacks in the press misunderstood the Frey-Osborne study from 2013, creating the material for panic out of their highly qualified, rather uncertain conclusions?) I also think Ms. Tate overlooks the important fact that (as Frey and Osborne noted, not that anyone was paying attention to what they actually said) its being technically feasible to do something does not make it automatically worthwhile to do that thing--and so underestimates the economic and cultural and political obstacles to actually using these technologies to substitute for human labor, even were the performance of the technology perfectly adequate from a purely technical standpoint. Ms. Tate, for example, acknowledges that humans might be preferred in face-to-face jobs, and counts a certain amount of legal work among them--but overlooks the extent to which professionals, especially those belonging to the more powerful professions, can be expected to resist their replacement by AI (as was demonstrated in their reaction to the plans to have the first "robot lawyer" plead a "client's" case in a California court back in February).

I might also add that the hint of gloating Schadenfreude toward the college-educated "elite" and celebration of "blue collar values," especially to one alert to her politics, makes it easy to picture her reveling in the anticipated ruin of a group of people she despises--or perhaps simply "trolling" them with the thought of their ruin--coming in ahead of critically-minded caution.

Still, the essential argument is not just well worth thinking about but, if we start actually seeing chatbots and other technologies really make their mark, likely to become more commonplace--with the same going for the consideration of their implications.