AI and the Coming Jobless Economy -Robert Reich

[justaprogressive]

Friends,

May I be candid with you about the U.S. economy? It’s growing nicely, and the stock market has soared. But on what really counts to most Americans — jobs and wages — it’s shitty.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning that employers added 130,000 jobs in January. That’s not bad until you see that health care accounted for more than half of them. Construction gained 33,000 jobs. Most other sectors were flat.

I would have expected far more job growth, considering the paucity of new jobs last year.

Artificial intelligence isn’t the culprit directly. I think employers have been cautious about hiring given all the uncertainty in the political economy, starting with Trump’s wildly-vacillating tariffs. But many employers are assessing AI’s likely impact on their businesses, and may be holding back on some of their hiring in anticipation. After all, payrolls comprise two-thirds of a typical business’s costs.

Promoters of AI are working overtime to spin it as benefiting average people. Anyone who watched the Super Bowl ads for AI last Sunday saw how AI is being spun as a wondrous boon to humankind.

Consider the breathless front-page headline in a recent Washington Post: “These companies say AI is key to their four-day workweeks.” The subhead was as euphoric: “Some companies are giving workers back more time as artificial intelligence takes over more tasks.” As the Post explained:

“More companies may move toward a shortened workweek, several executives and researchers predict, as workers, especially those in younger generations, continue to push for better work-life balance.”

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-bogus-4-day-workweek-that-ai]

[Moostache]

1. The nanosecond that they "give back time to the workers" will be ice harvesting day in hell.

ANY millisecond of work not being done by humans will be paid at $0.00/hr..
ANY jobs that lose the majority of their functions will be cut.

These clowns believe that if they cut ALL costs to the bare minimum that magically people will STILL be available to buy their goods and services and be happy about it. The fundamental misunderstanding of supply AND demand is utterly astounding. Most of these tech-bro CEOs and their cheerleaders in the crypto scam universe could not pass macro or microeconomics or knows anything at all about accounting - they are just 100% sure that AI and algorithms will handle all of that, and that AI customer service will handle those (non-existent and annoying) customers, and that AI au pairs will raise their children while AI gigolos keep their AI wives out of their AI sculped hair.

The mania is right in front of everyone's face - no more or less than Tulip bulbs in the past, or dotcoms or Enron or NINJA loans or too big to fail. It just goes on and on and on and the poor people are the ones hurt because in this game of musical chairs, they are not even allowed to listen to the music, let alone scramble for a seat...

[gulliver]

2. Good essay but with Reich's usual flaws

We most definitely need to ensure that the benefits of AI accrue to everyone. Also, Reich is obviously right that depending on institutions seeing productivity gains and spontaneously sharing them in the form of shorter work weeks would be foolish.

Where Reich tends to go offtrack is when he inevitably drifts to the siren song of "equality" and, in particular, resentment of "inequality." Although those are perfectly, empirically true, they're not useful. We're being distracted by them, missing the forest for the trees. Most people, I would argue, don't want equality. They want sufficiency, a happy life, and for everyone to feel above average (thanks, Garrison Keillor).

We're not going to get that by giving ourselves an occasional rage fix over equality or by "fighting the power." You get a 4-day week by making it a goal and an issue. You get AI as wind beneath the wings of everyone by making it a goal and an issue.

We now return you to Epstein, ICE, and Nazis everywhere, brought to you by Dove dishwashing detergent.

[leftstreet]

3. Guess we'll need a Basic Income n/t

[Renew Deal]

4. These two interviews on this topic are worth watching