Palantir CEO Alex Karp thinks his AI technology will lessen the power of “highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat” while increasing the power of working-class men.
“This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters,” Karp said in a CNBC interview Thursday. “And so these disruptions are gonna disrupt every aspect of our society. And to make this work, we have to come to an agreement of what it is we’re going to do with the technology; how are we gonna explain to people who are likely gonna have less good, and less interesting jobs.”
While his point probably sounds logical to a person who only wants to hear things that confirm their feelings, I think it is missing an incredibly important point. Yes, AI will probably not be used to replace plumbers, car mechanics, carpenters, etc. And yes, AI will mostly be used to TRY to replace people in office jobs. But assuming his point is true that all those office people lose their jobs (ignoring the whole sexist part of female voters), then who is going to be able to pay wages to those plumbers and mechanics? Trades people in the US are making really good money right now, and that’s because office workers in the US are making really good money right now compared to the rest of the world.
It’s almost like a rising tide lifts all boats and that helping those around you is better than helping a billionaire who is siphoning up the tidal water to pay for data center cooling.
To add to that, many office workers that lose their career will then go get a plumbing license. There will be fewer paying clients AND more plumbers to choose from. Wages will absolutely go down for everyone if there are fewer careers available.
Look up the average age of plumbers, electricians, and welders. What happens when a body of knowledge living in the collective heads of an aging population gets removed from the labor pool faster than we can get younger folks interested in learning that information?
Wages are high right now, in part, because finding a highly experienced, capable tradesman is constrained by the available supply in a given geographic region.
It’s the classic case of capitalists not understabding where their profits come from. If enough of us get laid off, we’ll remind them. Increasing exploitation only works to a point.
Agreed with a lot of this, but
Lots of those people did get replaced already by technology, it was just called industrialization and assembly lines. What’s left now is artisan wood working and emergency repair work for plumbers and mechanics, and you can’t employ all of America’s blue collar workers with luxury stuff and emergencies.
Another thing that doesn’t get mentioned here - if AI and self driving cars work out like they want them to, goodbye delivery work and long haul trucking, which actually is a ton of blue collar jobs. Also, self checkout machines and chatbots are eating customer service jobs that less educated workers might otherwise be doing.
The biggest portion of blue collar jobs that will be tough to automate will be everything associated with construction just because they’re moving to different sites and jobs faster than it would take to get bots well trained to do that work, but if unemployment jumps and new home sales even look like they might slow down those jobs disappear fast.
My point is - if technology and labor rights get to the point the office workers are starting to feel the bite, guaranteed blue collar workers are all teeth marks by that point. Not that I would expect a CEO to talk honestly about that.
Again if you further take away there’s roles of drivers, reatails assistants who’s gonna have to money to pay for all the delivered goods? It will just strangle the economy.
High educated women aren’t office workers though.
So being a CEO of a tech company isn’t an office job? Being a software engineer writing code is not an office job? Being a graphic designer at a magazine isn’t an office job?
Where do you think those women work? Yeah, some become doctors or work in science labs, but most people with college degrees work in an office.
It’s a management job.
Office work implies secretary and data processing. Phone service.
Yes it’s true doctors work in offices but we don’t say being a doctor is “office work”. We say they work in a clinic or hospital.
Engineers work at firms
Lawyers work at firms
Researchers work in labs/, universities or R&D.
The term “office work” is typically used for mid to low wage work done by people with limited college or university degrees. Like associates or bachelors at most.
I’m sure the guy saying it believes that’s the only higher up jobs that women have.
“Office workers”. Secretaries.