Dystopian Discrimination Is Here

This dystopian discrimination is nothing to do with colour, gender or age, and everything to do with being a human being.

Employers in multiple sectors (I’m a copywriter) are discriminating against people by giving our jobs to machines. Machines that don’t need paying, or holidays or lunch breaks.

Machines that don’t have the pressure of families to support, mortgages and bills to settle.

People can’t work as fast or for as long as these machines, so they are being shunned and sidelined in favour of AI. And greedy employers are rubbing their hands with glee as they onboard this job replacement technology.

While they outwardly urge humans to work with it, claiming it’s only a tool, they’re making payroll cuts, generating savings to the delight of the C-suite and shareholders, no matter the human cost.

And what of the government, whose job it is to protect its citizens from discrimination? Are they seeing the jobs catastrophe that’s coming? Almost certainly. But instead of going all out to protect people as they are elected to do, they’re getting into bed with the developers of this soulless AI, rolling over and letting the tech oligarchs have their way.

The British government is actually pushing to change the law so that these AI machines can be trained on copyrighted works without paying for access to these works. They say it will kill AI if it’s not allowed to plagiarise and train for free.

Boo fucking hoo. If your business needs to break the law to work, change the business, not the law.

There are plenty of other non-AI businesses who’d love a law change to boost their profits.

So why is it only for AI that governments are prepared to rip up the statute book?I wonder why ??££$$

It’s a move that surely threatens to set a dangerous precedent that could pave the way for businesses in other sectors to push for law changes to boost their income. Perhaps bank robbers should ask for a change in the law so they can relieve financial institutions of their cash without fear of legal repercussions.

I despise all AI with every fibre of my 55 year old being. OK, it may advance medical treatments here and there, but in my opinion its generative usage elsewhere – for schooling, designing and writing in particular – are paving the way to disaster.

People are already stopping thinking and doing for themselves in their millions. They’re abdicating responsibility for cognitive tasks to machines. Brains are turning to mush and lakes are being boiled into oblivion by the power demands AI needs to generate its slop. I write about this in my latest dystopian novel, Dead Headz, which, of course, I highly recommend reading.

Worst of all, opportunities for young people to enter industries such as advertising are being obliterated by AI as the simpler tasks that newbies are usually given are now being performed by machines.

And it’s those in my age group whose support of AI I find particularly galling. Where would these wrinkled, contented, arrogantly rich individuals be if AI had been around when they were trying to start out in their career?

Of course, they don’t care. They’ve made their money and they want to be seen as still relevant. Their kids will be well looked after in ivory towers or deep-dug bunkers when the devastating impact of job evaporation hits home.

The world is turning into an utter mess because tech geeks who have no understanding of humanity – and perhaps even a dislike for it – are being allowed to pull the strings by those in power who stand to make huge financial gain from the proliferation of job stealing, highly discriminatory AI.

And you don’t need to be a white male in your 50s like me with a copywriting business that’s fast going down the tubes to feel the effects of that discrimination.

FURTHER READING:

I’ve written about the negative impact of AI from a fictional perspective in various books:

Last Writer Sitting / Only a Tool- this contains a particularly poignant speech on AI and discrimination, delivered by a disenfranchised copywriter during a March for Humanity through the streets of London.

The Ghost of Christmas Threeve - a developer falls victim to the tech he has created, losing his job to his machines on Christmas Eve. At the point of giving up on life, he’s given the chance to experience three different ways his Christmas Eve could have turned out, and he must choose one to be his reality forever.

The Pub Gardeners - a dark comedy about two advertising creatives, Waverley and Darlington who are made redundant by clients who decide to use AI. The two lads head to the pub to drown their sorrows and mull over their futures, and find a kindred spirit in the publican who is facing a similarly grim future…