It's not unfounded "moral panic" that AI will take our jobs, it will.
It's not hard to find accounts of people who say they're 2x, 3x, 5x more efficient in their work now. That's going to quickly translate into 1x person working at 5x efficiency putting 1-4 people out of work. It's not hard to find accounts of people who have already lost their jobs-- such stories have popped up here on HN.
Sure, you can argue that the jobs are simply displaced, and others will emerge requiring different skills than AI can easily perform, but that doesn't negate the reasonable panic individuals in jobs will feel. The article cites off-shoring as an example, but that's actually my point: I know various people who were ~55-60 when offshoring hit they industry or company. They were displaced and never found a new career-- their expertise was in areas that other corps were also outsourcing. I saw plenty of individuals hop to another company only to have their job and the new corp ofshored a few years later. Then if they're lucky & near the finish line they can take early retirement, but if they're a bit short of that mark they worked jobs that paid minimum wage+$1-$7/hour. Apart from other people I came across, I knew several such individuals when I worked a big box retail book store (when those were still relevant) during my college years.
So yeah, even if the author is correct that job loss or displacements are temporary, that's still a process that takes a minimum of 10-20 years. Retirement age minus 10-20 years is a whole heck of a lot of the population that are in jobs right now that can be automated of 3-5x'ed by a single person. Panic, or at least anxiety, is a rational response to that. Sure, a person should learn the new tools ASAP to be one of the 1x-now-5x workers but there's just not enough slots for everyone.
It's not hard to find accounts of people who say they're 2x, 3x, 5x more efficient in their work now. That's going to quickly translate into 1x person working at 5x efficiency putting 1-4 people out of work. It's not hard to find accounts of people who have already lost their jobs-- such stories have popped up here on HN.
Sure, you can argue that the jobs are simply displaced, and others will emerge requiring different skills than AI can easily perform, but that doesn't negate the reasonable panic individuals in jobs will feel. The article cites off-shoring as an example, but that's actually my point: I know various people who were ~55-60 when offshoring hit they industry or company. They were displaced and never found a new career-- their expertise was in areas that other corps were also outsourcing. I saw plenty of individuals hop to another company only to have their job and the new corp ofshored a few years later. Then if they're lucky & near the finish line they can take early retirement, but if they're a bit short of that mark they worked jobs that paid minimum wage+$1-$7/hour. Apart from other people I came across, I knew several such individuals when I worked a big box retail book store (when those were still relevant) during my college years.
So yeah, even if the author is correct that job loss or displacements are temporary, that's still a process that takes a minimum of 10-20 years. Retirement age minus 10-20 years is a whole heck of a lot of the population that are in jobs right now that can be automated of 3-5x'ed by a single person. Panic, or at least anxiety, is a rational response to that. Sure, a person should learn the new tools ASAP to be one of the 1x-now-5x workers but there's just not enough slots for everyone.