DISCOVERIES
ROBOTS AREN’T COMING FOR YOUR JOB… THE SYSTEM IS
COMMENT
Artificial intelligence could change the face of many industries, but it’ll be humans that decide how
ILLUSTRATION: ADRIAN ARIAS ASTORGANO
Shortly after ChatGPT was released, in early 2023, a freelance writer named Jason Colavito posted on social media that a client was replacing him with AI, because it could write content for free. But the client also wanted to hire Colavito – at a fraction of his normal rate – to ‘rewrite’ the AI-generated text. This is not the first time that technology has slashed salaries instead of jobs, and the real problem is not AI. The problem is a culture that devalues human labour.
With the release of new AI applications, discussions about the future of work are resurging in full force. A recent study looked at professions in the United States, from poets to financial managers, predicting that 19 per cent will soon lose 50 per cent of their tasks to AI. But our previous experience with automation suggests it’s much more complicated than technology simply replacing human work.