Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Here come new tools. Adopt them or lose your job? Probably not.

Yet more recent news about big tech eliminating jobs due to AI. Or perhaps they were eliminated because those companies simply hired too many people and they weren’t doing much of anything on the job. Here are more thoughts on the topic.

I guess I should provide some thoughts as this is my blog and all that. Okay, here is my take: new tools can eliminate jobs. That what new tools do. Nothing new here.

To eliminate jobs, folks need to jump into the new tools, work harder and smarter, and produce
That takes initiative and energy. My guess is that about 1% of folks on the job have that initiative
energy.

About 49% of folks on the job will use a new AI tool to do something they don’t want to do,
but still take the same amount of time to do the job because they are hiding from their boss.
The other 50% will just sort of keep doing what they’ve always done until someone bothers them.

Is that cynical and pessimistic? I don’t think so. Folk, jobs are important. They provide the money to feed, clothe, and house families. Many people at work come to work and try hard now and then so they can have the money needed to feed, clothe, and house their families. Their job, however, is not the most important thing in the world. They have other things in their lives that are far more important.

I find that good and honest, not cynical and pessimistic.

Yes, some of these new AI tools will reduce the need for some people to be doing the same old thing. I wish those people well and hope they find jobs to care for their families. Is this a turning point in the history of the world and the workplace? Perhaps, but not likely. We have come through plagues and such and other things that were much worse. We will come through this one as well.