The Importance of Basic Income in the Age of AI

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Venture capitalist Jason Calicana tweeted that AI is going to nuke the bottom third of performers in jobs done on computers, even creative ones. In the next 24 months white collar salaries are going to plummet to the average of the global workforce and the speed at which the top performers can write prompts. There was a long thread that followed that that I didn't read the whole thing and, you know, I'm certainly not going to read it out on this podcast. The first reply that came up for me was from a guy named Scott sentence, who was kind of agreeing this and pushing this notion that it was going to eradicate a ton of work.

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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