Ten times

I’ve talked about one just-so story of AI—the notion of its inevitability—and I want to talk about another, that AI will increase productivity. This is a somewhat tricky story to explore, because it rests on the obfuscation of what we mean when we say “productivity.” [C]ertainly, companies will be interested in tracking their customers with AI, whether as targets of ads or as imagined thieves. For most companies, however, there is an even bigger target at which to point their AI technologies: the people they employ. When companies do so, the ostensible purpose is usually simply described as increasing productivity. After all, who could be opposed to getting more done with less work? Alas, increases in productivity are deeply interwoven with two other purposes: first, the automation of supervision and control—management. Second, the reduction of wages, for instance by increasing the pool of workers that can be hired for particular tasks—deskilling, outsourcing, and globalization. Blix…