ipocalypse A U.S. Senate committee led by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has produced a report claiming that approximately 97 million U.S. jobs could be lost to AI and automation over the next 10 years. There’s just one problem. That’s because we’re getting these numbers from ChatGPT.
According to a report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP): [PDF]artificial intelligence and automation could eliminate tens of millions of American jobs over the next decade. Officials scoured economic and business data to compile the report…then asked ChatGPT to analyze federal job descriptions and estimate which jobs are most likely to be replaced.
As a result, the data appears hallucinatory. Here are some numbers that show how many humans are expected to be superseded by AI.
- 89% of employees working at fast food restaurants and counters
- 83% of customer service representatives
- 81% of workers move freight, inventory and materials
- 80% of secretaries and administrative assistants
- 76% of bookkeeping, accounting, and audit clerks
- 76% of stockers and order takers
- 66 percent of clerks
- 65% of teaching assistants
- 64% of auditors and accountants
“The handful of oligarchs who have rigged our economy for decades – Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and others – are now working in full force to replace human workers with what they call an ‘artificial workforce,'” said Sanders, the HELP executive. “If we do not act, the consequences could be economic devastation for workers across this country.”
As an answer to this supposed jobs apocalypse, he suggests that governments should enact a “robot tax” to be paid when workers are replaced, require everyone else to work 32 hours a week without reducing wages, allow companies to share profits with workers and sit on boards of directors, prohibit union-busting, and further ban companies from buying back their own shares.
But these numbers are, frankly, nonsense. AI can do many things nearly as well as humans, but food service and manual labor are not one of them. If you’re trusting AI to handle your accounting, the SEC probably wants to have a word. However, Sanders warned that robotics could replace humans.
“Elon Musk says he wants Tesla to build millions of robots. And what are these robots going to do? They’re going to replace the men and women who work in factories and warehouses and restaurants. That means millions of good jobs could be lost. It’s not complicated,” Sanders said in a Fox News op-ed, noting that this is not a place where democratic socialists are often found.
But despite Elon Musk’s claims that robots will be able to do human jobs, there is still little evidence that it will be possible in the short term. It’s true that Amazon, for example, uses robots to do heavy lifting in its warehouses, but they’re far less effective than human staff.
A recent study from Yale University also suggests that there is no evidence of “obvious” disruption of the labor market due to AI. However, some companies, such as Salesforce and Fiverr, have cited AI as a reason for recent layoffs.
The report claims that companies are firing employees, replacing them with AI systems, and reaping huge profits (though the jury is still out on that). There are some real dangers ahead, but the proposed remedies seem to have little to do with the real-life situation in which many workers find themselves.
Ironically, some of the recommendations in the report make sense even though they have nothing to do with AI or robotics. If governments ban stock buybacks (which were illegal until 1982), companies could encourage investment in production and innovation in exchange for rewarding shareholders and supporting stock prices. Companies like Intel and Boeing spent billions of dollars on such programs (which also increased CEO pay) and then turned to governments for bailouts when the going got tough.
But using questionable data to stoke fears about AI won’t solve that problem, nor will it solve the chronic underinvestment in U.S. manufacturing. Rather, this appears to be a standard point that Mr. Sanders has made over the years. For example, increasing union representation may not be a bad idea in some industries, but it’s little clear how HELP thinks this will solve the AI problem.
And, as Sanders has suggested, adding paid family leave would be beneficial for workers, but it would not prevent them from being automatically removed from their jobs. If we are facing an AI apocalypse, we need concrete solutions, not just picking up old policies. ®
