The Importance of Collective Power in the Age of Generative AI

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The writer's guild is renegotiating with the Hollywood studios. One of the things that they immediately put on the table was a clause in the contract around generative AI. So that's just one example of where if you have the kind of power, you can potentially push back and try to get some wins on this early on. It becomes much more difficult to ensure that employers aren't implementing it in a way that takes away the rights of workers.

Paris Marx is joined by Aaron Benanav to discuss OpenAI’s claims that generative AI will take our jobs, how previous periods of automation hype haven’t resulted in mass job loss, and why we need to ensure it doesn’t further empower employers.

Aaron Benanav is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and the author of Automation and the Future of Work. Follow Aaron on Twitter at @abenanav.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Aaron wrote about why chatbots won’t take your job for the New Statesman.
Microsoft is rolling out generative AI in its enterprise software services and its Azure platform.
The Writers Guild is proposing contract language on AI in scriptwriting to ensure writers still get the credit.

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