Discrepancy between AI anxiety and reality
Layoffs in the telecommunications industry had been occurring even before AI was cited as a reason. Now, the same reduction is accompanied by an explanation: AI. In the gambling industry, employees are reporting layoffs due to AI. Beyond employment, AI will be the reason and the means to determine prices, bank transactions, address loneliness, and verify diagnostic imaging. While reading this half-day article, I have one question to keep in mind. Of the events that were said to be ``AI's fault,'' how much did AI actually change, and where did the explanations come from after-thoughts that were added to pre-existing judgments? In the main text, materials for confirming the boundaries are arranged section by section.
Layoffs in the telecommunications industry had been occurring even before AI was cited as a reason. The Sebastian Barros Newsletter points out that telecom companies have been cutting jobs even before AI, and now AI is being used as the reason. Even though the chronology of reductions is the same, only the accompanying explanations have changed. Times of Malta reported that employees in the gambling industry are reporting layoffs due to AI. In two separate industries, the telecommunications industry and the gambling industry, there are stories of reductions due to AI.
When we put these two things side by side, we can see what the reader should check. It is not possible to tell just from the text of the article whether the report that ``AI has reduced the number of people'' refers to the introduction of AI itself or an explanation attached to a pre-existing reduction plan. In the telecommunications industry example, the deciding factor is whether the same reductions occurred in the period before AI. The gambling industry's report is the employee's perception and needs to be verified separately from what the company cited as the reason for the reduction.
Meanwhile, anxiety itself is widespread among working people. KTVU called the fear of losing one's job due to AI "AI grief" and covered how to deal with change. Al Jazeera reports that big tech companies are using fear of AI as a weapon. The stronger the fear, the more important products and investments from companies that use AI will seem. For companies, fear may act to suppress dissent from management decisions by explaining the reason for reductions as AI. This point shows that we need to look for the source of anxiety not only in the workers' actual feelings, but also in the motivations of the people speaking.
