The threat to jobs from AI, mostly those on the lower-paid end of the spectrum such as call centre operations and customer service functions, is much more immediate than anything else
When it comes to conceptualising the impact of AI on the planet, forget Skynet or Blade Runner; think McKinsey, as author Ted Chiang suggested in The New Yorker last month. In that context, it is not difficult to see AI performing a similar economic function to McKinsey’s role in normalising “the practice of mass lay-offs as a way of increasing stock prices”, he wrote.
The threat to jobs from AI, mostly those on the lower-paid end of the spectrum such as call centre operations and customer service functions, is much more immediate than anything else.Una Mullally: As humans, we still have choices.
Sadly, they are also far less likely to spur the policymakers – who help shape the political and economic context in which the technology is put to work – into action if recent history is anything to go by.