How AI kills Meritocracy

Sure, the system we have in place isn't perfect. The rich have always found it easier to get richer. The financially disadvantaged have had to work hard to get to barely even footing. But it worked.

The IT sector had been providing enough jobs that there was an emerging faction of spenders fueling economies with the occasional vacation or impulse buy. Sure, you didn't love your job, but hey, you had money to spend on distractions and indulgences.

Now, those with the powers that be are coming to realize they have the ultimate tool for maximizing company profits. Cut out the people, entrust the intellectual labour to machines.

The emergence of AI has already fueled much debate. I doubt I'm adding anything new to the collective discourse. But a thought occurred to me this morning that I couldn't dismiss without putting down to paper. We're heading towards such a crazy dystopian future. And unlike in most Sci-Fi thrillers, this dystopia might be one that pushes us back a few decades in social and intellectual development.

When we were kids, we had a whole array of options before us to pick from. Some more than others. However, the baseline truth remained- if you invest a certain amount of effort to make yourself skilled and capable, you can achieve your goals. Want to be a doctor? Here's the road map. Study these terms. Practice these many hours so you'll have a steady hand in surgery.

Today, a kid might start with the same dedication, only to find at the end of their journey that they've been replaced by a steady robotic arm and a dedicated AI to control it.

To be clear, I don't believe that we won't have doctors, 5-10 years from now. However, with the increasing offloading of intellectual tasks to AI, the barrier to entry will be significantly reduced. You don't have to work as hard anymore to achieve the same results. This tilts the window of opportunity away from the have-nots and back into the hands of the haves.

People are starting to pay for access to technologies that exponentially increase their efficiency. 'Work Hard' had always been society's rallying cry to battle inequality. What happens when that no longer holds true? With fewer jobs and greater concentration of wealth in the hands of those who own these artificial agents, it seems so much more likely that we'll regress to a more unequal state of being.

I'm not even going to start on the possible evolutionary consequences of pushing all tasks that require us to form cohesive thoughts and plans to ChatGPT or Claude. I'll save that rant for another time.

Regardless, there doesn't appear to be anything that can be done to stop the chain of events that's already been unleashed.

On that depressing note, here's me signing off. Hope you're having a better weekend than I am.

-Kino