The Atlantic’s March Cover: Josh Tyrangiel on AI and the Future of Work—“What’s the Worst That Could Happen?”
For The Atlantic’s March cover story, “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?,” staff writer Josh Tyrangiel examines AI and the future of work. Reporting from Silicon Valley; Washington, D.C.; and beyond, Tyrangiel interviewed central bankers and labor economists, AI executives and union leaders, Cabinet secretaries and populist political figures including Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon. And the consensus among many, even those who may agree on almost nothing, when it comes to AI and employment: We’re not ready for this, and no one’s in charge.
The main question animating Tyrangiel’s reporting is whether and how quickly workers ought to expect artificial intelligence to take their jobs. He writes that an exact prediction is hard to pin down: It’s perhaps less immediate than many of the technology’s biggest boosters might hope, but AI still represents a development that will fundamentally alter our society, and governments ought to be thinking seriously about how to protect their constituents from the inevitable shock waves.
Trying to measure the impact of AI with today’s data can feel like driving while looking only in the rearview mirror––“plenty dangerous if the road stays straight, catastrophic if it doesn’t.” Tyrangiel writes: “AI is already transforming work, one delegated task at a time. If the transformation unfolds slowly enough and the economy adjusts quickly enough, the economists may be right: We’ll be fine. Or better. But if AI triggers a rapid reorganization of work—compressing years of change into months, affecting roughly 40 percent of jobs worldwide, as the International Monetary Fund projects—the consequences will not stop at the economy. They will test political institutions that have already shown how brittle they can be.” And if mass job loss should come, it doesn’t just mean unemployment, “it means missed loan payments, cascading defaults, shrinking consumer demand, and the kind of self-reinforcing downturn that can transform a shock into a crisis, and a crisis into the decline of an empire.”
Tyrangiel writes that “AI is just a newborn. It may grow up to transform our lives in unimaginably good ways. But it has also introduced profound questions about safety, inequality, and the viability of a wage-labor system that, despite its flaws, spawned the most prosperous society in human history. And there’s no sign—none—that our political system is equipped to deal with what’s coming. Which means the deepest challenge AI poses may not be to jobs at all.” Tyrangiel concludes that coming to a solution around AI will take a collective effort: “America would be better off if its elites could act responsibly without being terrified. If CEOs remembered that citizens are a kind of shareholder, too. If economists tried to model the future before it arrives in their rearview mirror. If politicians chose their constituents’ jobs over their own. None of this requires revolution. It requires everyone to do the jobs they already have, just better.”
Josh Tyrangiel’s “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” has published at TheAtlantic.com. Please reach out with any questions or requests.
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