Cory Doctorow on AI

I don’t often fully agree with Cory Doctorow, but his heart is in the right place, and he’s more often right than wrong. He’s working through his thinking on AI, which, as usual, is worker-centered. In his latest Pluralistic newsletter, he has some great quotes that I thought were worth repeating.

Even though an AI can’t do your job, an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can’t do your job. But why are bosses such easy marks for these gabby AI hustlers? Partly, it’s because an AI can probably do your boss’s job – if 90% of your job is answering email and delegating tasks, and if you are richly rewarded for success but get to blame failure on your underlings, then, yeah, an AI can totally do that job […] Bosses are easy marks for anyone who dangles the promise of a world where everyone – human and machine – follows orders to the letter, and praises you for giving them such clever, clever orders.