While this does not affect me directly, I find this disturbing on two levels: 1) the ethics of using AI to generate creative work when the AI was trained on the work of others with no attribution or compensation, and 2) the negative impact on the livelihoods of creatives. And, assuming that AI will continue to get better, this is only the beginning of the impact on creatives. New jobs and industries will be created by AI, but others will be negatively impacted.
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Unfortunately, people have been losing jobs to automation, etc. for centuries and AI is just the latest chapter in the story. I worked in manufacturing for twenty years and saw many manual jobs replaced by machines. In one instance we had to significantly reduce the cost of a part we made while increasing our quality.
So our engineers built a machine that could replace 15 workers and achieve the needed quality. We trained existing employees to operate the machines and were able to reduce our workforce through attrition.
The World Economic Forum says “We’ve all got used to changing jobs throughout our careers – American adults have held down an average of 12 by the time they’re 55. But now we’re entering an era in which most of us won’t just have one career, but many.
Employment experts predict the rapid pace of change in employment will mean individuals will need to become lifelong learners to prepare them for multiple career changes during their working lives.”
AI will probably affect all of us in one way or another. As one lawyer put it, “So these are very exciting times because maybe the solo small lawyers might be able to be more competitive with the biggest law firms if I as a solo lawyer could have 20 large language model associate agents working underneath me.”
Last week I watched the 1970s movie Day of the Jackel. In one scene a railway worker walks alongside a parked train tapping the wheels with a metal rod. I had no idea what he was doing.
So I asked perplexity, and it said:
The railway worker you observed in the movie “Day of the Jackal” was performing the role of a wheeltapper. Wheeltappers were railway workers employed to check the structural integrity of train wheels and ensure that axle boxes were not overheating.
Here’s why wheeltappers tapped train wheels:
Structural integrity check: Wheeltappers would tap the wheels with a long-handled hammer and listen carefully to the sound produced. A intact wheel would “ring true,” while a cracked wheel would produce a different sound, much like a cracked bell.
Overheating detection: In addition to checking wheel integrity, wheeltappers would use the back of their hand to feel if the axle boxes were overheating.
Safety precaution: This practice was crucial for the smooth operation of railways, as a cracked wheel or overheated axle bearing could lead to delays and potential accidents.
Historical context: Wheeltapping was particularly important in the 19th century when metallurgy was less advanced and it was difficult to test steel wheels for cracks using other methods.
While wheeltappers are now largely obsolete in countries with modern planned maintenance procedures and line-side defect detectors, they were once a common sight at large urban railway stations and in goods yards.
Job loss is always distressing, and I don’t mean to make light of that, but a lot of jobs that were once necessary have now disappeared, but we don’t see them, and we humans are really good at adapting.
My first job was selling evening edition newspapers outside the local railway station. There were about 20 other people working at that station: people loading and unloading mail and parcels, taxi drivers, a couple who ran the cafe in the waiting room, ticket clerks, porters and a couple of people who waved the trains off with a green flag and kept an eye on the platforms (and swept and even gardened). There is literally not one worker left at that station most of the time now. If it’s not completely automated, it’s remotely monitored. The place feels much less safe, and certainly much less welcoming and humane, than it was about half a century ago.
Technology has a lot to do with those changes, of course. But it’s not the whole story. A lot is to do with decisions about what is ultimately most important: is it good customer service, companies that provide a positive contribution to the common good, the valuing of human agency and creativity (like the flower beds at the railway station - long gone now) or is it only money and the ruthlessly efficient maximisation of profit? Of course change was inevitable and there is much about the modern world that is so much better, but we are not forced to go for the cheapest, less human approach every time.
It’s not just AI. I talked to a friend who works at a newspaper. And I complained about declining quality in articles. She said: the expectation is mass, not quality. More clicks, more ad revenue. So, they are completely OK with 10 articles with shallow research and average writing, instead of a single excellent one.
This of course, set the stage for AI.
There’s an episode of Star Trek where Data asks Geordi “why build a ship in a bottle when a replicator can make one in seconds?” He said “because its the process that is important.”
I do not think human beings can act that principled with technology.
I do think there is a bit of a reckoning. Generally the creative more elite types tended to look their noses down on blue collar work regarding automation. Now they are facing the same thing and I hope there is a bit more empathy to go around.
all I was getting at was that now that intellectual class is facing the same thing Blue Collar folks faced for decades. Maybe they’ll be room for empathy.
Building on top of someone else’s work is not unusual. The US passed its first copyright law in 1790 and at that time works created by individuals was protected for 14 years. After that it entered the public domain and anyone could use it. (Now that protection lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years.).
Scraping the web is new and it appears most AI companies, including Apple, is guilty of doing it. The courts will have to decide what is and isn’t acceptable about that.
A few years after I left my job at a major manufacturer most I.T. personnel, in my former division, were replaced by foreign workers. Who were trained by the people they were replacing. Some years later the same thing happened at Disney..
As businesses adapt to changing circumstances and technology people are going to be affected.
