It took about 50 years for the automation of elevators to eliminate the job of elevator operator. Once you can reach your floor with the simple push of a button, why would you pay someone just to push the buttons?
The problem is that elevator operators delivered other services besides being sure the lift was level with the floor. They acted as greeters, baggage handlers, provided directions, and offered information about the building and businesses inside.
Apparently these ancillary services are so valuable that upscaleshopping centers are now hiring people to provide exactly these services that elevator operators once did for free.
Douglas Rushkoff has long argued that ever since the invention of the printing press, people are valued more for their ability to crank widgets than they are for any skill or mastery. Workers are every bit as interchangeable as the typeset letters on the press.
Even the most creative endeavors you can imagine, such as making music, become deskilled as vinyl albums and Top 40 radio turned songs into commodities. Record producers have much more say about a song’s success than do the individual artists — a point that echoes a very similar observation made by Tom Wolfe in The Painted Word.
This relentless mechanization of every type of skill and trade, leaves Rushkoff…and all of us most likely…wondering what happens to humanity when AI takes the wheel.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei speculates that artificial intelligence could eliminate up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years.
Here’s my question, if we stop hiring entry-level workers, where are we going to find people with the skills to become mid-level employees, supervisors, and managers?
