The AI Revolution: A Collision Course with the American Workforce
The narrative around AI is intoxicating. Efficiency, innovation, a world without human error. But beneath the glossy veneer lies a harsh truth: the American worker is about to get screwed. And it’s not some dystopian future we’re talking about, it’s happening right now.
The Problem:
Let’s ditch the fairy tale of the American worker “upskilling” and making room for new invention. Sure, a select few will thrive in this new AI-powered world. But for the vast majority of knowledge workers – your middle managers, your analysts, your everyday office drones – the future looks bleak. AI is coming for their jobs, and it’s not playing fair.
These aren’t just low-level tasks getting automated. We’re talking about core functions: data analysis, decision-making, creative work, even HR, and R&D. And the pace of change is relentless. By the time your average worker “upskills” in one area, AI has already moved the goalposts.
This mass displacement will have a ripple effect throughout the economy. Where do these workers go when their cushy remote jobs vanish? Not back to the office. And starting a blog for passive income isn’t going to work either. How about becoming a creator? Sorry, most people are boring. My bet: they’re heading back to the factory floor, the construction site, the fields. The very jobs we’ve been giving to immigrants (both legal and illegal), offshoring and automating for decades are suddenly going to look a lot more appealing.
The problem is that all three of those options (immigrants, offshoring, automating) are better for the corporate bottom line than an entitled out of work office jockey coming in and doing it.
And what’s our republic doing about it? Fanning the flames. Let’s just say that I hope Trump succeeds with mass deportation. Because otherwise the new cheap labor in America will be the displaced knowledge worker, who is slow and clumsy with their hands. Deregulation and deportation is his two word playbook and the American people have decided that’s what they want, with big tech given free rein to unleash AI without any regard for the human cost. Let me be clear, I am against slamming the door on immigrants, they’ve stopped being the cheap option a long time ago and more and more are becoming the quality option. It’s hard to outwork an immigrant from any country. That’s been true since the foundation of our country. Just ask Alexander Hamilton. A mass deportation will leave a labor shortage in the short term which will inflate costs, that vacuum will be filled by displaced knowledge workers who will take advantage of the inflated prices while providing slower, lower quality work, that will eventually be delegated to someone else who is slower and lower quality so they can get back to being a middle manager with a business owner title that doesn’t create any real value. “Torlando, tell me how you really feel.”
But the real kicker? “equality” in quotations. Look, I’m all for a level playing field, but let’s not pretend that’s what we’ve got. In the race to the top, some folks start with a head start, while others are hobbled from the get-go. Equality, in this context, is a cruel joke. It’s telling those already struggling to pull themselves up by their bootstraps while the elites are handed a jetpack.
The alternative preached by the left and college professors, equity, would be great in theory. Give everyone a fair shot, regardless of their background. Acknowledge the handicap and apply it in the real world. But that’s not what the people want. Equity fails ar the ballot box. When you ask every individual identity group, the majority don’t want to be given a leg up to get on equal footing. They just don’t want a leg down. No one wants a handout, as it turns out even if that means greater inequality in the long run. They want the comforting illusion of equality, even if it means getting left in the dust. On top of this, overt DEI initiatives largely fail, not because DEI is wrong or unethical, they fail because of the problem it’s trying to solve. The majority detests DEI initiatives because it makes them feel like the bad guys. Retaliation is the most common result of a DEI initiative and things end up worse, not better for the people they are aimed at helping. And that’s largely how we have to look at the current political state, retaliation for making the majority feel like the bad guys. So let them eat cake, I guess.
My point, unregulated Ai doesn’t help the world, it helps those at the top. And the people at the bottom voted to support the people at the top. Mitt Romney, himself said the conservatives have somehow become the party of the working class but don’t have the policies to support them. Ai, allows the individual to output more with less time. And in four years time as ai becomes agentic, ai will allow the company to output more with less people. Unfortunately, most of these people losing their jobs aren’t going to upskill, their going to be up a creek.
The Solution (or Lack Thereof):
Frankly, the solutions are bleak. We need massive investment in education and training, not just for the tech elite, but for everyone. Young people need to start training their hands again but not neglect their mental training. Apprenticeships plus collegiate certifications would be a winning combo. We can’t become a nation that hates intellectualism. But we let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction and we have an entire generation that can’t make anything with their hands. We need social safety nets that actually catch people when they fall, not leave them to fend for themselves. I think over the next four years the MAGA base is going to learn how far the extent to which Donald Trump doesn’t actually have their back. We saw what that looked like in the Pandemic but they didn’t believe their eyes. AI over the next four years is going to be a bigger problem for him than the Pandemic and he’s going to fumble the ball again. He loves being decorated with lunches with tech billionaires. About a quarter of them are consumer focused altruists riding a dragon they think they have trained. Another quarter are capitalists focused solely on shareholder value. The rest want that dragon to slash and burn everything so we can start over with tech being the new government, with its own currency, laws, and sovereignty. With crypto, and the further deregulation that’s coming with Trump they are two thirds of the way there. In short, if we don’t get real about regulating AI, it regulates us. I say this knowing that the first thing I do today will be to ask AI what I need to do today to generate a lead so I can just blindly and somewhat effortlessly follow its prompts.
Regulation is likely the answer but the regulators lost trust with the American people. The political will simply isn’t there. We’re too busy arguing about tax cuts and culture wars to address the real crisis brewing beneath the surface.
The Future:
Prepare for a future where the gap between the haves and have-nots becomes a chasm. Where the American Dream becomes a cruel punchline. Where the promise of technology is overshadowed by the reality of human suffering. We think our country is too stable to be destabilized but Russia, China, and Iran don’t agree and republicans and democrats aren’t binding behind a common enemy. We’ve let each other become the enemy. We have become two nations, divided by culture, race, gender identity, belief, status, education, and dialect. There may not be a path back to a United front, but ironically, the thing that may save it is the thing that will likely be the catalyst to tearing it down first. I’m talking about AI, not Elon Musk.
The AI revolution was born in the 2020s and like a child it’s cute and exciting but as a hormonal teenager it’s about to get real ugly and out of control, and when it flies the coop and becomes an adult it gets to decide what it will be.
Will it create peace? Will it create disparity? We shall see. We shall see.
