The "No Work" Paradigm
The AI industry wants human work to be replaced by AI, but this is only possible if most people, companies, and governments agree with the "no work" paradigm. Hopefully, it won't happen | Edition #281
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The “No Work” Paradigm
There have been various recent reports predicting the future of work and AI replacement, including one by the World Economic Forum and another by Anthropic.
Most reports focus their predictions on theoretical and observed skill exposure, analyzing which tasks in a specific occupation can be, or already are, automated by AI.
I have also seen posts and analyses comparing AI to previous technological developments, such as electricity, the internet, or smartphones, and, from that, trying to estimate how AI's impact on the labor market will unfold.
The reason most predictions will end up being inaccurate is that AI is fundamentally different from previous technological waves in terms of what it automates.
AI is the first technology in human history that can mass-automate cognitive processes: it can potentially assist or replace most professionally valuable cognitive and decision-making processes, skills, and tasks.
However, at the same time, every single job exists within broader legal, institutional, ethical, cultural, societal, and human contexts. As a consequence, automating one or more cognitive processes, tasks, or skills does not make a job, profession, or occupation immediately expendable or unnecessary.
Therefore, the only situation in which AI would lead to the mass replacement of humans, putting most white-collar jobs (and, later on, most jobs) truly at risk, would be if most people, companies, and governments embraced the “no work” paradigm.
Let me explain why and how:
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Assisting with one or more cognitive or decision-making processes, skills, or tasks is not sufficient to conclude that AI will replace that job or the human behind it. Why?
There are human institutions, societies, rules, policies, requirements, needs, and expectations behind every job, and the way AI performs a task might not meet existing quality, safety, legal, or other previously specified criteria.
Even though AI may assist or fully take over a specific skill, task, cognitive process, or decision-making process, most jobs are tailored to humans and human societies, as well as to human judgment, preferences, tastes, styles, formats, shapes, needs, ethics, and delivery.
Therefore, before the output of an AI system can be considered adequate, legal, ethical, safe, or meeting minimum quality standards, a human often has to intervene and present it in the way human society expects to receive it.
As a consequence, despite widespread AI assistance and support, we would still have plenty of jobs, which is exactly what is happening to white-collar jobs today.
Let me use customer support to illustrate this point:
This is a job often framed as highly exposed to AI automation, and one that many companies have been attempting to automate to reduce costs.
At the same time, dissatisfaction with AI-powered customer support is very common, and most of us have at some point been angry or frustrated by the poor service.
From failing to understand the problem to providing irrelevant or circular answers, as well as pretending to be human or avoiding directing the consumer to a human representative (even when the consumer seems desperate), these AI bots have often been associated with lower-quality service and an overall disregard for consumer feedback or well-being.
They could also lead to legal liability, such as in the now-famous Air Canada case, where the airline's customer service chatbot ‘hallucinated’ a discount, and the court ordered the company to honor it and pay damages.
Customer support can likely be partially automated through AI, but if the organization wants to maintain higher-quality service and convey the impression that it cares about its customers, humans will have to remain closely involved.
Humans would be needed to develop and maintain customer service bots, review the quality of the conversations, step in to help solve practical issues, show the company cares about customers, and avoid lawsuits.
Customer service is just one example. I could go on and talk about each and every professional task AI could potentially assist or fully automate, and discuss why human institutions, rules, policies, requirements, needs, and expectations behind each job will likely block full AI replacement and ensure that plenty of humans will still be directly involved.
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Having said that, there is one potential scenario in which AI would replace most white-collar jobs (and, in the future, potentially all jobs), as predicted by AI company CEOs like Mustafa Suleyman.
This is the scenario AI companies are subtly but actively promoting, including when they foster AI idolatry, advance legally questionable theories of AI personality, and treat AI as inevitable aliens that came to overtake human institutions.
It is also the main message behind the “AI-first” narrative, as treating AI as a goal (rather than a means) would help companies increase profits dramatically and make AI indispensable to the functioning of the economy.
This potential scenario involves a major paradigm shift in how we see ourselves, AI, human life, and work.
I call it the “no work” paradigm.
In this paradigm, most governments, companies, and employers would somehow be convinced by the AI industry that AI is much smarter than humans and, for the sake of efficiency and productivity, should fully replace most human cognitive work (and later on, all human work).
They would argue that most people should stay at home and receive some form of universal basic income.
People would be expected to sit ‘happily’ on their sofas, enjoying the theoretical idea of AI-led abundance.
A selected group of AI experts would help train and oversee the AI models and systems that are effectively ruling, mediating, shaping, and entertaining society in every sector.
A few individuals at the top of the pyramid would be the AI overlords, likely billionaires or trillionaires, cashing in on their monopolistic AI empires.
A handful of politicians, diplomats, and other technical experts would be required to keep the system afloat.
However, as much as the AI industry tries to spread this narrative and create this future of AI replacement and ‘abundance,’ the “no work” paradigm will likely fail, at least over the next two or three decades. Here is why:
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