Unlike earlier waves of artificial intelligence (AI), where robots and other forms of automation eliminated blue-collar and other physical work, AI innovations such as ChatGPT will target better-paid occupations involving “non-routine, cognitive tasks,” according to the “OECD Employment Outlook 2023: Artificial Intelligence and the Labour Market.”
These occupations, along with the TV and movie industry, form much of the woke world. The realization that their jobs are marked for disappearance can be seen in the current strike by Hollywood writers, who demand guarantees that ChatGPT won’t eliminate their jobs.
While multitudes of workers in these woke-dominated fields will suffer, not so the woke bosses at the top of the pyramids, who will prosper by running their departments with the larger budgets that come of slashed payroll expenses. And not so the woke institutions that employ them: the Big Tech that rules social media; the legacy media that censors dissenting views; the universities and cultural institutions that foster the growth of critical theory; the Fortune 500 companies that enforce the woke philosophy of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
But although these progressive-left employers will become more remunerative, they will ultimately become less powerful, since AI apps and robots don’t get to vote. Big Tech will continue to censor and the educational system will continue to indoctrinate, but their hold over many will weaken. Workers who presently identify with the woke world will migrate to less progressive occupations in less progressive industries in less progressive communities, eroding their identification with the woke economy.
In contrast to lost jobs in Big Business and in the virtual spheres, many of the non-woke fields—where people use their hands rather than laptops—will be left relatively untouched. ChatGPT won’t replace the plumbers who install water systems, the electricians who upgrade the service in homes, or the piano movers who help families relocate to a new home.
When employed in large institutions, workers face few threats to their survival—paychecks are regular; medical plans are a given; pensions are secured. When booted from this nanny environment, people must fend for and think for themselves. Those with the gumption to adapt—to struggle with the challenges of new, less comfortable chapters in their lives—will inevitably develop different mindsets.
ChatGPT is a technology intended to transform the economy by enhancing its productivity. Unintentionally, ChatGPT will simultaneously transform society by shifting its governance away from woke progressivism and toward traditional liberalism and conservatism.
