Back in 2023, ResumeBuilder asked 1,000 business leaders whether and how they surveil employees on a primarily remote or hybrid arrangement. More than a third said that they used webcams to monitor workers. The previous year, the New York Times reported on the rise of the “worker credit score,” the new model of productivity enforcement in which bonuses and promotions are tied to mechanical inputs like keyboard swipes that are not necessarily reflective of real productivity or creativity.
Where these employer panopticons have been implemented, many workers have simply decided to quit rather than surrender what remains of their privacy and autonomy. In a different time, that might have seriously alarmed employers and compelled them to change course. Not so in ours. The proliferation and advancement of artificial intelligence means that we will increasingly be able to outsource work to algorithms that do not chafe at being ceaselessly monitored and prodded or passed over for promotion.
This revolution will not only sweep away the livelihoods of white-collar workers. It will come for blue-collar people, too.
Speaking to Fox Business, Ed Watal, the founder of IT strategy firm Intellibus, said that “smart transport robots (STRs) and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in warehouses and factories have already started eliminating tasks like operating forklifts, but the advent of Gen AI means technology can handle other, more complex operations that are currently handled by humans.”
AI doesn’t even have to be just as good as humans to replace them. It just has to be almost good enough. People who think otherwise have to reckon with the fact that this is precisely what companies have done with H-1B visas—replacing more talented American workers with foreign laborers who are less skilled but can also be paid less and mistreated. The same principle applies here. It’s also why fewer jobs are safe than people realize right now. Think of trucking.
According to Pew Research Center, trucking is one of the top three occupations for young men without a college education. Tesla is already in the process of developing self-driving semi-trucks. Rapidly automating these jobs out of existence would inflict a painful social cost on the country.
Millions of men would suddenly find themselves out of work, unable to support their families. How many would lose everything? How many would spiral into addiction? It was not so long ago that we established a connection between the offshoring of jobs and opioid deaths. One 2019 study found that, in general, “the loss of 1,000 trade-related jobs was associated with a 2.7 percent increase in opioid-related deaths. When fentanyl was present, the same number of job losses was associated with a 11.3 percent increase in such deaths.”
Why wouldn’t this also be true of the loss of jobs in relation to AI?
Tucker Carlson once told Ben Shapiro in a debate that if it were possible to automate trucking, he would still oppose it for all the above reasons. It is unlikely that he meaningfully countersignals the new administration now, though. Vice President JD Vance, who Carlson is a key supporter of, has signaled that he is on board with AI maximalism, as I recently wrote about for Chronicles.
It cannot be emphasized enough that conservatives and liberals alike will not be spared. It does not matter who you voted for in November.
Just ask Jennifer Piggott, a self-professed former “MAGA junkie” who now regrets voting for Donald Trump because her job was eliminated by the Department of Government Efficiency’s algorithms.
Piggott worked at the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Service based in Parkersburg, West Virginia, a community that overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election. She had been there for five years and was recently promoted.
On Jan. 31, she received an immaculate performance review. Then DOGE deleted her job, citing “poor performance.”
“I had the highest that you can get on the review less than 21 days before I was terminated for my performance,” Piggott said. “To cut the knees out of the working-class Americans just doesn’t make sense to me.”
Author and columnist
is someone who has firsthand experience with the pain of losing people and profits to AI. He thinks the solution could be as easy as imposing practical guardrails on the technology.
If it is inevitable, then let’s at least do our best to ensure that it serves humans and not sacrifice human things to the inhuman god of efficiency.
There are some silver linings here. Jack and I talk about those near the end of this episode. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
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