Every morning around 0600 as I take my morning walk, I pass the morning round of delivery vehicles.
They come in two types. The first is the large, blocky van associated with the world's biggest online retailer, complete with beeping noise when parked and the high beam incandescents indicating an electric vehicle, their drivers in the blue and grey uniform. The other are the personal transports - cars, trucks - with the driver that may or may not wear a safety vest clearly delineating themselves as a delivery person, single package grasped in hand.
The same two groups will appear in the evenings as I make dinner: added to these two groups are a third group, personal cars whose drivers are not safety vest clothed but are carrying boxes and bags of what are clearly food to doorways.
Even 5 years ago this was not a thing. Now, it is as regular an occurrence as street lights going on and off.
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My work, along with likely hundreds (or even thousands) of other companies, is heavily pushing Artificial Intelligence (or AI). When I say "heavily pushing", I mean a multi-week mandatory training regime to be done by the entire company. Progress is tracked. Levels of in-person engagement are expected.
The point of all of this is to bring Artificial Intelligence into our daily work. The anticipated outcome is that we will all begin to use Artificial Intelligence to automate simple (or not so simple tasks) and create tools that allow us to focus our time on higher level activities (what these "higher level activities" are never clearly defined except in generic sorts of examples). I am assuming that, for next year's goals, some level of Artificial Intelligence will be included: demonstrating using it in practical terms, creating a tool, automating tasks.
It was only in one of the later trainings that it was noted that those who learn to "adapt" will be the most successful in the new work place.
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The point of this discourse is not to argue the benefits or lack thereof for Artificial Intelligence; people far more educated and thoughtful are commenting on it. My particular point is dwelling on what I see as two opposite points: On one, an intensely manual process that has virtually no barriers to entry except the ability to drive and follow instructions on a phone; on the other, a process where automation is being heavily pushed as a way to make work more efficient.
That industries and companies will oversell the benefits of Artificial Intelligence goes without question in my mind: if history has demonstrated anything, it is that companies will triple down on anything that promises to save money regardless of the long term ability of said thing to save money or even work effectively. They will the initial results that they think they will get; the long term impacts - such as, for example, Artificial Intelligence not being the panacea for ever task - will manifest itself only after the people have been fired and the systems changed to accommodate Artificial Intelligence.
More importantly, what happens to the people who did those jobs?
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I cannot guess at the reasons people take delivery jobs. For some, it is likely the job they can get. For others, it is one of many they can use to piece together an income. But in either case, these jobs are predicated on an underlying principle: people have money to spend that allows them to buy things that include the overhead for delivery.
In an economy which is in distress - be it from a collapse in markets or a mass series of layoffs - the first thing to go for many is non-essential spending. Spending will concentrate down further and further into the basics - housing, food, the basics of living. And with that spending drop, goes all sorts of other jobs.
It strikes me that I am looking at an economic system that is eating itself from both ends, both the highly paid and technical side and the low end minimum wage side. What emerges from that I can scarcely imagine - except I cannot imagine it will be good.
Interestingly, fresh college graduates I worked with “never have any money” and yet order door dash for lunch. No packing their lunch and no driving the short distance to get their own food to save money. For some reason, those didn’t seem like options to them; we are salaried employees so it’s not as though clocking out would result in less pay. Very little motivation to pinch pennies in most of the recent college grads I’ve met.
ReplyDeleteAnon - Interesting as I have had some of the same observations. I really believe it is a combination of a way of life and not having any "need" to do so yet (although there are very good reasons for saving money proactively, of course). If all you have known is good times and your way of life has always been to get food from elsewhere, there would be no incentive to change your mind until events intervene.
DeleteI say that about "young people". I have plenty of coworkers who stop off for their coffees as well on the way to the office.
It is everyone's own money of course; it is just surprising that it has become so matter of course.
As mentioned above pinching pennies is something that seems to be lost on a fair number of people, of ALL generations. When some think nothing of spending eight bucks for a cup of coffee or having a meal delivered and then stating "where does the money go?" ......well now. All the $$$ being spent on AI makes me wonder when the crash will happen TB, it will, just when is in flux.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, pinching pennies (as long as they are still around - will we call it pinching nickels in the future?) is a largely lost art. Yes, probably because of our general consumer society, but also because it is not a rewarded or celebrated behaviour. Celebration of new things is common; celebration of how much is saved is relegated to small groups and "the Fringe".
DeleteLike you, Nylon12, I wonder when, not if.
I was called to a two vehicle car accident at an unmarked intersection at dawn about 6 miles from the closest town. Upon arrival I found 2 cars both delivering Amazon packages. Luckily nobody was injured, but the irony of it all was almost beyond belief. F. Hubert
ReplyDeleteF_H - Grateful that no-one was injured as well. That said, the irony is readily apparent. No-one would have noticed if those packages arrived 5 minutes late.
DeleteAt the rate we are going, in 10 years you may end up answering calls for auto-drive delivery vehicles with no humans involved.
So far from an old medics point of view, for all the flashy hip gotta DO IT stuff I notice so far that AI being offered for free or nearly so.
ReplyDeleteNo noticeable information about folks actually making money yet.
Automated machinery including delivery vans are NOT AI just excellent programming.
But MUCHO Dollars being thrown at AI. Almost the whole Stock market rises and falls on its reports and rumors.
Must have resources to get things done.
China built nuclear power plants FOR their AI. In America they are promising new power plants FOR AI as it's VERY POWER HUNGRY.
No reliable power, no AI. When they are starting to re-furbish and refuel old nuke power plants for it, that sounds good but where pray tell are you going to get fuel for it? A few moments on Google (Not AI BTW, just a good search engine) shows that BEFORE the AI power demands our domestic uranium production and refinement was less that 5% of CURRENT demand. 95% Imported.
Even best case optimist reports say IF NO Political resistance it will take around a decade to replace 50% of our CURRENT pre-AI demand nuclear fuel needs.
I do fear a techno- tyranny as scarce resources are "reallocated to essential peoples and the rest of us just have to "deal with it".
Michael, people are making money - it is the people who are selling stocks and chips. In terms of businesses, I can assure you that in terms of overhead (e.g., live bodies) companies are claiming to recognize reduced spend due to the replacement of people with Artificial Intelligence; one company (an online real estate firm as I recall), bragged they reduced headcount some thousands thanks to Artificial Intelligence.
DeleteThe power things is indeed a puzzle, given that we have doubled and tripled down on "renewable energy" that will not support such an infrastructure. It will be exciting (at least for me) to see the debate among those that want the benefits of Artificial Intelligence but will not build the power infrastructure to support it.
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/10/10/is-it-really-different-this-time/
ReplyDeleteA good discussion of the facts about the AI mania and real world limits.
For those in business, please remember how DIE was a requirement and going to make us more inclusive and somehow more efficient-profitable.
How did that work out?
Wolf really is the best. I am so much better educated because of his posts.
DeleteThe illusive promise of better efficiency and higher profits for businesses reminds me of gardening. Every system of gardening promises that it will result in healthier more productive plants and greater yield. Except no one ever tells the weeds, insects, and plant diseases about this promise.
ReplyDeleteI noticed during covid how quickly businesses were to jump on the band wagon. Everybody had to display some sort of statement or policy, in a sort of follow-the-leader fashion. My conclusion was that business tend to be just as fad oriented as individuals.
I read an article on a tech site which discussed a study about AI and public trust. Interestingly, people with the least experience with AI trusted it the most. The more folks worked with it, the less they trusted it.
Leigh - Ha! Great analogy. I especially enjoy the improvements in agriculture that dig deep into technology, ignoring the inputs that it takes to have that technology available every day.
DeleteBusinesses are as fad driven as any person and Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is a real thing. Like many things, it is seen as a potential game changer and no-one wants to be left behind, even absent of any actual proof that it works.
I have read the same sorts of studies. In my limited experiments at work, it is 100% dependent on the data input. If those that propagate it are smart, they will seek to make sure that the common folk do not use it too often, lest they too come to distrust it. Easier to keep people relatively uneducated about it and just assure them that "Artificial Intelligence says..."
I foresee a day were Artificial Intelligence will be blamed for a great many things.
Being rural, we don't have the smile type of deliveries. All ours come in brown panel trucks or through government supported mail. I can't speak for the latter but for the former, I am friends with a fellow who drives one of those trucks and I am gobsmacked at how much money they make. It is factor of 5 or more times what a hardworking person in the food service industry probably makes. So I can see that attraction of why a person might take that job. I know I certainly would if my other choice was flipping burgers for way less money.
ReplyDeleteAI is one of those things that excites and scares the heck out of me. I already have seen some great uses of it that no doubt better mankind and resulted in very little if any collateral damage. But I see some of the discussions of potential uses, especially when it comes to military applications, and I am quivering in my shoes. Many of the greatest inventions that have changed the world in great ways have brought so much bad into it at the same time. I expect AI will be no different.
Ed, I had a friend in Old Home that was a brown panel driver, and I assure you that money is well earned. I think only recently their trucks may have gotten air conditioning; I have never seen one of them dilly dallying or being slow - something I cannot say for the other drivers, at least what I have observed.
DeleteArtificial Intelligence is exciting to me in small chunks. I would, for example, love to see historical re-creation movies that bypass modern day interpretations. But those sorts of uses will be minimal at best. The items it will be used for - as you suggest, military applications for example or other things where human intervention are critical - almost never go well.
To paraphrase Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, You can do a thing. Did you ask if you should do a thing?