Millions of Americans marched in yesterday’s No Kings rallies, although you wouldn’t know it from the controlled state press. Heck, i’ve had to go to places like reddit to get a feel for what’s going on with ordinary citizens. The US is at war, but nobody wants to call it a war, except perhaps the unfortunate young people in the military sent on a benighted mission to take some waterway we really don’t need with weapons that are inadequate to the task. And as the stock market wobbles now that the Strait of Hormuz is closed by Iran in retaliation for the US/Israel strikes on the country, the price of a gallon of gas, along with some spring travel, has gone straight up the flue.
But it’s a lovely Sunday in Silicon Valley, balmy and sunny. A perfect time to reflect on how jobs will be impacted by AI.
AI is not a “new thing”, and it’s not always a “bad thing”. AI is an excellent tool to analyze and respond to complicated contradictory datasets.
William and I had planned to use AI for 386BSD. An operating system and written works supported by a couple of enthusiastic people is a difficult prospect to say the least. We not only had extensive source code repositories — we also had extensive often unpublished writings on those very code bases. And it was impossible to respond to inquiries timely about this project. It vexed us.
William’s untimely death prevented us from taking action in this area. But that doesn’t mean it is yet impossible. New and accessible AI tools to mine, collate, analyze, and respond are now available. Open source documentation, support, and updates would benefit from these tools.
While the constant refrain that “AI will take all the jobs” is frightening, it’s also not correct. But it grabs attention from dazed and scared people worried about their next paycheck. It sells papers, so to speak.
The most frequent press focus on AI is software development. This is because the people working on AI are software developers. We eat our own dog food, as the Microslop folk love to chant. We know about software development, so we think “Hey, let’s make it do software development”.
Silicon Valley also loves to sell out their own. They always have. Our love of our own meritocracy results in a flawed reductionist nostalgia. Beginnings are difficult things, and we often start and stop before we achieve any success. We usually fail, but even the failures can have meaning. These lessons are forgotten once a startup becomes a success, sadly.
So the developers and inventors and folks who did the hard work are forgotten. Resentment of those “costly” developers festers. And then the Silicon Valley C-suite says “Hey, let’s use [pick a tool] to get rid of them. There’s a whole lot of code on the web. There’s stack overflow. Let’s raid it. Who needs those guys!”. Hence, the current fad.
Many Silicon Valley companies overhired in the last decade, mostly to fill offices in their corporate real estate kingdoms. So reductions were expected. In addition, we’re in a late stage economic cycle before a recession. Holding on to lots of people developing products that can’t be sold in a recession is scary. Yes, the C-suite gets scared just like ordinary people. So they’re getting ahead of that event before it happens — often to excess.
This is not our first recession rodeo, folks. Been through it many times here in Silicon Valley. We got startup funding several times during the darkest recession times. Why? Because trying new approaches is a time-honored way of getting to the stage after the recession, which is growth. That’s where the good engineers and inventors and software developers will be. You can’t automate innovation.
So now, who is actually at risk? The answer is anyplace where costs dominate or innovation stagnates.
Companies and even individuals first reduce costs by looking at non-critical areas. Marketing, PR, and social media. HR. Travel. Creatives. They’re on the cutting board, as always. AI is already chatting with customers, and sometimes even solving the problem. Sometimes.
Stagnating innovation is a bigger issue. Product development at companies will be in a free fall. People will be fired. AI will be blamed. But it’s just the same old cost-cutting in a new coat. Gotta blame something, and blaming AI is easier than admitting your company is not going to do anything new for a good while. So batten down the hatches, folks. AI isn’t necessarily coming for your jobs. It’s just the convenient excuse.
The dark and looming monster coming for your jobs is the anticipation of a recession. Will it actually occur? I don’t know. I don’t know when or how or why. Nobody does.
But the fear-of-losing-out culture is now the fear-of-moving-too-late culture. AI is the excuse, not the cause. Look behind the corporate curtain. Think critically. Read. And plan for your future. Because no one else cares about you like you do.