November 7, 2025 • 49 mins
On this episode of The Middle, we're asking if you're afraid that AI and automation will take away your job. Jeremy is joined by businessman and Forward Party founder Andrew Yang and Axios Chief Technology Correspondent Ina Fried. DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus calls from around the country. #AI #automation #jobs #MachineLearning #DataScience #bluecollar #whitecollar #layoffs
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Support for the Middle comes from the stations that air
the show and from you. Thanks for making a donation
at listen toothemiddle dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson coming to you
from kr in Dallas, Texas, along with our house DJ Tolliver, who,
unlike a certain Spotify DJ, is not AI generated. Isn't
that right, Tolliver?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
You know what's messed up? He does kind of sound.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Like me, he does. He sounds like you.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Am I so replaceable?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
No? I don't think so. By the way, thing I
learned Tolliver, I am broadcasting actually from the temporary studios
of KIRA, which is actually the studios of the oldest
radio station in the state of Texas, WRR. It was
licensed in nineteen twenty two, which is kind of amazing.
Thing I also learned the Dallas Fort Worth area is
the number one market for the largest private employer in
(00:54):
the country that we Walmart. There were over one hundred
and fifty Walmart and Sam's Club stores in the area
and so they just built one of their first automated
distribution centers in nearby Lancaster, Texas. Now these facilities can
use robots to package up groceries to send to their stores.
They even put like fragile items like eggs and peaches
(01:14):
at the top so they don't break. Very smart robots,
and of course these facilities mean that fewer humans will
be needed going forward. And we heard just in the
last week or so that the nation's second largest private employee,
that would be Amazon, is cutting fourteen thousand jobs. Although
the CEO Andy Jasse has claimed AI isn't just replacing
(01:36):
people at the company, it may actually lead to more
human jobs at Amazon. Here he is in an interview
with CNBC.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
Yes, like with every technical transformation, there will be fewer
people doing some of the jobs that the technology actually
starts to automate. So there're gonna be other jobs, and
we're going to hire more people in AI and more
people in robotics, and they're gonna be other jobs. Is
the technology wants you to go hire that will hire
overtime too.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, that may be the case or maybe not. But
a report out this week found there were more job
cuts in this country in October than any October in
more than twenty years, and that report cited AI disruption
as one of the key reasons. So we want to
know from you. Do you think that AI will take
your job or you worried about it? Tolliver? How can
people reach us?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
You can call us an eight four four four Middle
that's eight four four four six four three three five three,
or you can write to us at listen to the
Middle dot com. And I'm looking at all your comments
on YouTube and all that.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So joining us this our businessman Andrew Yang, founder of
the Forward Party and founder and CEO of Noble Mobile,
which pays you to use your phone less. Andrew Yang,
It's great to have you here in the Middle.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Thanks for having me. Great to be back well.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And Ena Freed is also back with us, senior technology
correspondent at AXIOSA. Welcome to you.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
Good to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So before we go to the phone's Andrew Yang, there
is a report from Bernie Sanders and his Senate committee
that says one hundred million jobs are going to be
lost to AI in the next ten years. What do
you think about that prediction?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Order of magnitude Probably about right.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
Unfortunately, about forty four percent of American jobs are either
repetitive manual or repetitive cognitive, and given the size of
the workforce, that's about one hundred million plus workers. I
think it might take a little bit longer than ten years,
but that it's going to be excruciating for a lot
of Americans, and we're already seeing the early impact.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You know, free to Do you agree with that? What
does your reporting tell you how many jobs are at
risk and how soon?
Speaker 8 (03:36):
Well?
Speaker 6 (03:37):
I think it's it's going to be bumping uneven. I
don't know where we get to exactly, but there's certainly
a wide swath of jobs that AI is showing itself
to be remarkably good at, more so than we thought
maybe a year or so ago, in terms of actual performance.
It turns out the companies, though, are having a tougher
time doing it. So the technology exists to automate the job,
(03:58):
but what's hard for a lot of companies is the
people processes that they've built are for human workers. So
I think we're going to have this couple of year
period where companies want to use AI but struggle to
do so. But I think the underlying technology is likely
to radically reshape the nature of work.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And Andrew, what jobs do you think are most at risk?
What are the jobs that where people really should be
worried right now about AI taking them right now.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It's repetitive white collar work.
Speaker 7 (04:31):
They are about two million Americans who still work in
call centers, or at least there were. I bet that
number is shrinking very fast. I speak to CEOs and
they tell me that they're replacing their customer service departments
with AI, and that the customers are totally fine with it.
It used to be that when we got that bot
on the phone, we'd say, hey, zero zero zero person
(04:52):
perthin human human human. But now the interface has gotten
good enough where you're like, oh, I don't hate this,
it's not bad. And so you can see those two
million jobs disappear pretty quickly. Law firms are going to
be hiring fewer associates, banks, insurance firms, accounting companies.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
You know.
Speaker 7 (05:13):
The way I visualize it is that all of those
big office buildings that had tons of cubicles and human beings,
they're the equivalent of the factory that had the robots show.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Up in the nineties.
Speaker 7 (05:27):
In this case, the AI isn't as big and conspicuous,
but the AI is there, and a lot of those
cubicles are going to be emptied out.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
But okay, so if you think about lawyers. Though you
know they go to school, they learn a lot of things.
I mean, aren't they still useful? Isn't it still useful
to have a lawyer who can think with a brain
and say, actually, this is how we should argue this case.
Speaker 6 (05:51):
Well, certainly, having the critical thinking skills, somebody needs to
have those at the top of the food chain. But
what you're seeing in a lot of the cases is
that the work that sort of got you to be
that senior partner, a lot of that work underneath that.
That sort of people built up the skills over years
and years. But a lot of what they were doing
(06:12):
to build those skills is gruntwork document review. If you
look at the types of stuff that a first or
second year law student or lawyer was doing an associate,
they were not the greatest jobs, but they were doing
it with the promise that they'd be able to work
their way up. The challenge right now is we're creating
a system in which you're going to want somebody who
(06:32):
has years of practical experience in the field to be
the ultimate decision maker to interact with the AI. But
how do you ever get that if all the jobs
that get you there, and I know this is something
Andrews talked a lot about. So again, we're going to
have to be really thoughtful, and so far I don't
see a lot of evidence that we are in sort
of designing systems that work better with humans to get
(06:55):
to the kind of future I think any of us want. Unfortunately,
I think we're bare ahead towards the future where a
lot of people get laid off because of AI, but
there's not the human judgment at the top of the
funnel that's needed to ensure even that experience. You know, Again,
to Andrew's point, I think, you know, you might be
able to call a call center and have a satisfactory experience,
(07:18):
but the important thing is that when that bought fails,
you're going to have a human who's really experienced that's
able to take that escalated call. And you don't get
there if nobody's learning how the system works in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So is that the biggest problem, then, Andrew? The entry
level positions where people will not be able to learn
and grow and go up the ladder because they never
got those first skills because they're that job is unnecessary.
Speaker 7 (07:41):
Yes, I feel terrible for the young people who are
set to graduate from college this year, next year, or
the year after that. And I talked to the CEO
of a publicly traded tech company who said to me
confidentially that they're going to replace fifty percent or so
of their workers the next three four years. And his
(08:02):
daughter knows this, and his daughter's a college student. So
his daughter's like, well, I guess I'm not going to
get a job at your company, and I'm probably not
going to get a job at a tech a tech
company that looks like yours. I was an unhappy attorney
for a number of months. And the way the law
firms used to be structured as a pyramid, like you know,
was saying that you have a person at the top
and then a bunch of grunts trying to get there.
(08:24):
Now I joke that instead of a pyramid, it's going
to be a column, because you don't want an army
of first and second and third years that you're essentially
paying to train in the hopes that some of them
can work their way up and become a money generator.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Instead, you want to have.
Speaker 7 (08:42):
Like an experienced person at the top and then AI
below them. And the AI is cheaper, faster and you
might hire like one or two a law student, law
school graduates, whereas before you might have hired ten or twenty,
and so that there's going to be a massive loss
generation of young white collar wanna be workers.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Unfortunately, uh Ina, let's get out of law firms for
just a second. Let me ask you something else that
also involves people getting into a professional entry level. Are
AI deciding if you get that job interview right now,
no matter what the industry is, Are they the ones
that are picking which resume gets gets selected to be
looked at?
Speaker 6 (09:23):
Yeah, Unfortunately, we're in this really awkward time where everyone's
using AI, and again the systems just don't exist for
it to be done well. So yes, an AI is
scanning all those entries, and of course the bar to
submit those entries has gotten a lot lower because an
individual can use chat, GPT and say write me one
(09:44):
hundred cover letters, and so we have this weird thing
where you can generate all the content you want and
then it's too much for the employer or We're going
to see this in a lot of things and they're
using AI to screen it. I think to some degree
that that's going to increase for the next couple of years.
The importance of existing relationships that human relationships become more
(10:07):
powerful in this short term because AI is going to
get in the way of our communications. Even though it's
making it easier for me to refine my communications on
an individual level, it's giving everyone that capability. So millions
of people can apply for a single job. An employer
can't sort through that, so they're going to use AI
to sort through the millions who's most likely to get hired.
(10:28):
The friend of the.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
CEO, let me just quickly ask you, Andrew, just for
a little piece of good news, what jobs are least
likely to be replaced by AI.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
There are non repetitive cognitive and non repetitive manual jobs.
And non repetitive manual jobs can be jobs that don't
require a lot of education. And the example at I
like to use is hotel room cleaner. That's actually very,
very difficult to automate. If you can imagine a robot
trying to go into a hotel room after you leave
it and change the bedshet and clean up that weird
(11:02):
stay in you less or or whatever happens to be like,
you know that that's something that a human is going
to do. Now, that's not a job we all want.
That's not a job where you're kids like, oh great news,
you know.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like especially if you've got especially if you've got like
a Jerry Seinfelder George Costanzas saying one tuck and one
not tuck for the beds, stand by a second tolliver.
As we've said, one of the most shocking predictions about
what AI and automation will do to jobs comes from
Senator Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, and he has some thoughts about what to do
about it. Here are a couple of his ideas from
a video he released last month.
Speaker 8 (11:35):
Workers need a seat at the table to best determine
how AI is used in their companies. If Tesla workers
were on their corporate board, I doubt very much that
they would be rewarding Elon Musk with a trillion dollar
pay package. Third, we must greatly increase profit sharing at
(11:56):
our nation's largest corporations. In my view, workers should receive
at least twenty percent of the stocking companies they work for.
Corporate profits should not just be going to enrich wealthy
stockholders and the billionaires who own them.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
And we'll talk about some of those ideas coming right up.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I bet we will, we will, and we'll be right.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Back with the middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy
Hobson at KIRA in Dallas. This week of just Tuning In.
We are a national call in show focused on elevating
voices from the middle geographically, politically, philosophically, or maybe you
just want to meet in the middle. This hour, we're
asking you, are you afraid that AI will take your job?
Tolliver the number again, please.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four sixty four three three five three. You can also
write to us, listen to the Middle dot com or
on all social media.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
I'm joined by Forward Party, founder and founder and CEO
of Noble Mobile, Andrew Yang, and Axios chief technology correspondent
Ina Fried And the phone lines are lighting up, but
before we get to them, let me just ask you,
Andrew Yang, about what we've just heard Bernie Sanders say
there that he thinks that because AI will replace so
many workers, the workers are going to have more of
a stake in their companies in order to make money
(13:06):
own some of the stocks sit on the boards. Is
that realistic?
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I'm not sure how realistic it is.
Speaker 7 (13:13):
But again, think about the young person who might not
be hired by that company, or the person who's sending
out ten thousand AI resumes only to get rejected by AI.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Even if that company.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
Were to be more equitable in sharing the profits with
its workers, if you're on the outside looking in, you're
still going to be very sad. And the majority of
Americans aren't working at one of these tesla type companies
where there are profits that could be distributed. So I'm
not sure how realistic it is and I'm not sure
if it solves the problem that we're describing for most people.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
And are any companies trying to figure out how to
make sure that the workers continue to get paid versus
just reducing headcounts so that they can increase their profitability
with more AI.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Yeah, I think there are some companies that are looking
at this not so much as a cost cutting exercise,
but how can we serve more people if we combine
our employees and AI. And I do think it will
be interesting in certain fields. I think there will be
some companies that are more successful. For example, we talked
about customer service and call centers, and look, if you've
(14:19):
already outsourced your call so your call centers to a
company who's paid by the call and incentivized to spend
as little time as possible, You're probably not going to
be able to turn those call listeners into great representatives
of your company. But if you're a luxury firm where
customer care is still a real core part of what
(14:41):
you do, I think AI does hold the opportunity to
turn a smaller group of humans into sort of boutique
and concierge service while letting AI do some of the stuff.
So I do think there are some companies that are saying,
how can we call on twice as many customers? Not
how can we have half as many?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So people, let's get to the phones. Austin is in Carrollton, Texas. Austin,
Are you worried that AI will take your job?
Speaker 9 (15:08):
Yeah? Sure so at this very present moment. No, in
the near future. Absolutely So. I'm a software engineer, and
I think initially a lot of people hear that and
they think that you're in the safe zone. You're the
guys working on this stuff. But AI is very much
a text processor, very good at reading a large amounts
(15:28):
of texts, making analysis on that, and spitting it back
out in a pretty concise way, and coding is all
writing text. So while I have ten years of experience,
right now we're at the stage where these advanced AI
models are spitting out tons of code, and a lot
of companies are saying, hey, look at this code. You
as the experienced engineer, look at this code.
Speaker 10 (15:49):
Is it good?
Speaker 9 (15:49):
Put it in the production, let it go. I don't
know how long until the AI is going to be
doing that part for me. At the moment, this stuff
is moving so very quickly. Yeah, I've seen the stuff
go from spitting out some code that I looked at
said that scarbage. I'm going to write this in fifteen
minutes and be done with it.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Are you Are you doing anything to prepare yourself? Are
you thinking I'm going to have to change careers?
Speaker 9 (16:17):
Honestly, it's the skill set mindset for me at the moment.
Prompt engineering is what they call the people that are
running bi's and there's people that are very very good
at it. It's a skill I have not been very
keen on as an AI skeptic, but I see the
wall coming and I realized that if I don't get
on this, you know, I'm going to be I'm going
(16:39):
to be behind that AI serge for sure.
Speaker 11 (16:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Okay, Austin, thank you so much for that call. Both
of our guests were nodding as you as you said that. Ina,
your thoughts about that as software engineering?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Yeah, well I heard two things. I mean, one, obviously,
the tech industry is actually you know the phrase always
eating your own dog food. But you know, as the
caller points out, is actually really good when it's got
a structured language. Encoding is a perfect example of that.
So it is one of the areas that's being replaced
the most. But it was actually the second part of
what he was saying that struck me, And that's this
(17:12):
notion of, you know, really leaning into the AI technology
and whether you like AI or hate it, I think
there's a great case to be made that individually, the
best thing you can do for yourself is to get
really familiar with the technology. Be that person at your
company that knows how to use AI. First of all,
you'll be one of the most valuable to your company,
(17:33):
you know, unless and until they replace you. And also
that's sort of the mindset that probably you need to
get into. Plus, the AI is just good. I only
half jokingly said to someone last week that you know,
even if your job, even if your goal is to
get rid of AI, you probably should be using AI
to make the case for that, because it's gotten that good.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
With a lot of emojis, because AI loves emojis, especially
the right and mdash which Yeah, Claire is calling in
from Birmingham, Alabama. Claire, do you think AI? Are you
worried AI is going to take your job?
Speaker 12 (18:10):
Not at the moment, but I'm curious whether I should be.
I'm a high school teacher, and I feel like that's
a job that falls under the category that you described
of a non repetitive cognitive task. And in my opinion,
I don't see AI being able to do a teaching
job well. But there are so many AI platforms like
Magic School AI that are already doing some teaching tasks
(18:32):
for teachers that it seems like that could grow in
the future and eventually potentially replace teachers altogether.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Andrew Yang is a teacher at risk.
Speaker 7 (18:42):
I think teachers are among the safest because if you
think about the environment, you can't replace a human teacher
with like a screen and a bot and say, hey,
have at it for the kids. Now, some of the
tasks could be some of the lesson planning, some of
the curriculum design, but there's going to be a human teacher.
And part of it also is like who do the
(19:04):
teachers work for. They work for a school district. You know,
in school districts I think are going to be budget constrained.
But it's not like, you know, if the head of
a school district says, hey, guys, guess what we're firing
on the teachers, were replacing them with bots that they
get to raise. I mean, that's not the way it
works in that environment. So I think that high school
(19:25):
teachers are among the last people who should be concerned
about being directly replaced.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
Certainly made their jobs much tougher. Ch at GPT for
the moment is disrupting education, but yeah, I think it.
Also there's a couple of skills involved in being a
teacher that AI is no good at. Certainly, dealing with
the emotional needs of kids is pretty high on the list,
but empathy in general and care I think are aspects
that I would not expect AI to be very good
(19:53):
at anytime.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Soon I was keeping the kid from running out of
the room, you know, Like I mean the AI would
need arms and legs.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I was talking to a professor this week who is
going to all oral exams instead of having people do
written exams, because at least then they have to learn
a skill that maybe, I mean, maybe it won't be
useful in the future, but being able to talk and actually,
you know, explain your thoughts and think about things, maybe
that will be something that will be more useful in
an age of AI. One is calling in from San Antonio, Texas. One,
(20:22):
go ahead with your thoughts. Are you worried AI is
going to take your job?
Speaker 13 (20:27):
The I opposite. I think that it's going to make
my job better. But that's a personal stance. I'm a
professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
I conduct research on AI. I particularly have two projects
from ANIH International Science Foundation to train people on how
to use AI to conduct in complex sophisticated tasks. We
(20:52):
are witnessing. I believe a profoundly disruptive perios in human history,
probably comparible to the intention of writing. Many jobs will disappear.
It's going to cause an immediate shock, but the opportunity
that is opening are probably going to compensate for the
pain that we will experience in the short term. And
(21:15):
I believe that as a society we have to own
this problem. We don't want to live in a society
in which the core cannot eat and the wealthy cannot sleep.
That led to the French Revolution. So I think that
there is a conversation that pts to we had about
what is the social responsibility of communities and businesses toward
(21:38):
people because people is the foundation of society. At the
same time, we need to train people to use AI
in the future. What I believe is that AI will
be in everything we do. We're moving into a future
which people will not write directly, will direct agents to.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Write for that well, and it's already it's already in
just about everything that we do. But I appreciate that
call on and Andrew Yang. Some optimism there from somebody
who's deeply involved in AI already. I mean, do you
see that can we get past the shock and see
a world where we have livelihoods or things to do
with our time all day long and make money?
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Was that caull turally optimistic?
Speaker 7 (22:24):
When I ran for president in twenty twenty, and many
of you remember I called for universal basic income or
a freedom dividend of one thousand dollars a month, because
I thought that AI was going to displace millions and
millions of American workers. Our GDP right now is eighty
five thousand per person, which I thought was enough to
start providing a foundation of one thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
I started Noble.
Speaker 7 (22:47):
Mobile to try and lower everyone's wireless bills because right
now Americans are spending eighty three a month on our
wireless whereas Europeans are spending thirty five. Because I think
getting money back into Americans hands is the way we
get through this mass. And you can be optimistic about
the opportunities that a certain subset of Americans will have
via AI, but we can all clearly see that millions
(23:08):
are going to be on the outside looking in unless
our government gets its act together and starts distributing the
gains from AI more quickly and broadly. And as you
can tell, I'm energized about this because I called this
stuff happening in twenty nineteen, and you were there with me, Jeremy,
so you know, like it's incredibly frustrating that now things
(23:30):
have come to pass and we're wondering what to do.
It's obvious what we should do. We should eradicate poverty.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
By the way, just to clear up for our listeners,
I wasn't working on your campaign. I just interviewed you.
That's how Oh yeah, no, no, yeah, you know I
was right there with you. I was wondering, no Tolliver,
what is coming in online? And listened to the middle
dot com from our list.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Sure, mel in Colorado says AI was a factor when
I was laid off earlier this fall, along with federal
budget cut with no social safety nets, recipe for disaster
for an entire generational millennials who are told to get
college degrees to succeed. Let's go with gwyn and West Michigan.
She says, I'm a substance used counselor. I chose this
career recently because I think the human touch will always
(24:14):
be appreciated to the counselor. Also shout out to Andrew Yang.
I voted for him and still have my Yang merch.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
There you go, let's get back to back to the funds.
Steve is calling from Keene, New Hampshire. Steve, are you
worried about Ai taking your job?
Speaker 14 (24:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (24:33):
I am and I'm a career musician and a music teacher,
and ways we've been dealing with AI or computers or
machines taking music out of our hands for many years.
And the prompter asked me if I thought, you know,
there was a chance of music being completely taken over,
(24:56):
eradicating composers and live musicians. I'm not sure that's pos
But broadly, culturally, I worry about the effect and the
depreciation of value in traditional arts and human arts of
music as we take increasing advantage of things that are
(25:17):
more easy to access.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, there was a I think there was a symphony
that was complete, there was unfinished, and then somebody found
a way to complete it with AI or however AI
would would do it. Steve a very interesting enafried a musician.
I mean arts, I would think would be something that
would you know, be a later profession that would be
taken over by it, you would think, But it's not.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
And that's because a lot of people in the arts
make their money today commercially, and so photographers have seen
this for a long time. With digital I think other
artisans are seeing this, particularly if their work is somehow commercial.
So you're seeing the ability of AI to do sounds
and graphic arts for Hollywood, and I think that's where
(26:04):
we're going to see the pressure. I do actually think
there will be a renaissance in human appreciation for human
created art. I think that will be a likely side effect.
The question is how many people will be able to
afford to enjoy it. I think there will be plenty
of people that have more time to produce it. I'd
like to live in a world where there's an economy
for people to support them. There's a saying that, you know,
(26:27):
we wanted AI to do the laundry so that we
could create art, and we're having the opposite, And I
think there's some truth to that. But I do think
certainly where some of this nets out is that human
creativity becomes an artisan good that people want to experience
and will pay for. Again, we just have to build
(26:47):
an economy where they have the resources, they have.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
The money at right.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
And Jeremy, you know a big part of my business
is right and use it for TV. Right And I'm
nervous man.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, gotta be hones, right.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Tolliver's song was on the last episode of Abbot Elementary.
He's a huge star outside of his middle fame. Nathan
is in Barria, Kentucky. I hope I said that right, Nathan.
But tell us what you are thinking about AI and
your job.
Speaker 15 (27:14):
Hi, so one, Andrew Yang, thanks so much for being
on here. Your robot tax great idea. The Luddites in
seventeen ninety also have the same idea with taxing the
power loom. But I'm not worried my job is going
to be taken by AI. I'm a student. I worry
my therapist job will be taken by AI right now.
(27:38):
Surveys say that around twenty percent or more of gen
Z and younger are willing to have an intimate relationship
of various types with conversational AI. And you know, it's
a lot easier to talk to a screen about deeply
personal issues than a human sitting in front of you.
(28:01):
With the Supreme Court trying to decide whether or not
talk therapy is a First Amendment right or not, we
might end up in a world where the chatbots aren't
licensed therapist, but you know, they're wellness apps, or they're
AI girlfriends or AI boyfriends. So I'm I'm very deeply
(28:23):
worried that this is a harm that we can see
coming at us. Yeah, with no breaks on it.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, Nathan, thank you a very good point, Andrew Yang.
It is true that a lot of people are using
AI for therapy and even for relationships like that movie Her.
Speaker 7 (28:42):
Yeah, and it's just going to increase in frequency. I
live in New York and there is a giant subway
takeover by a company called friend dot com and is
an amulet you an AI Friend, which seems dystopian to
someone like me, but my wife is convinced it going
to be a very popular product. That there are a
(29:02):
lot of people who really struggle making friends with social interaction,
and it's a lot easier if you have an AI
that introduces like or a therapist. I think it's just
going to pick up steam. And my joke would be like,
have you seen you know, a young person recently like that,
Like a lot of them are more comfortable with an
(29:26):
AI type relationship.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah. Again, our number is eight four four four middle
that's eight four four four six four three three five
three Tolliver. Not everyone is doomed, saying about the effects
of AI on jobs.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Yeah, here's what we found. The CEO of Goldman Sax,
David Solomon on CNBC's squawk Box last month.
Speaker 16 (29:46):
Technology has been having an impact on headcount, the way
people work, what workers you have, you know for decades
and decades and decades, and this I think one of
the things that's that's that's happening here that's a little
bit different is this is going at.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
A pace that's quicker.
Speaker 16 (30:00):
Yeah, and so because the pace is so quick, I
think there's a possibility that there's a little bit more
volatility or you know, an unsettled transition, you know, around
certain job functions and things like that. But at the
end of the day, we have an incredibly flexible, nimble economy.
We have a great ability to adapt and adjust.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
You know, something tells me, Tulliver that the CEO of
Goldman Sachs is going to be okay. Whether we adapt
an adjust or not, that's just I don't know for sure,
but it just feels like that's the case.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, he doesn't need to go fund me. I think
he's gonna be fun.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I don't think so. We'll be right back with more
of your calls coming up on the middle. This is
the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. In this hour, we're asking
you if you're afraid that AI will take your job.
You can call us at eight four four four Middle.
That's eight four four four six four three three five three.
You can reach out a listen to the Middle dot com.
I am joined by Axios Chief technology correspondent Ina Fried
and Forward Party founder Andrew Yang. And just before we
(30:56):
get back to the phones, Andrew, you heard the CEO
of Goldman Sachs there saying, you know, we've been through
technological changes before. What about those people who say, you
know this is we've dealt with this and it's just
a fast pace, but we'll be okay.
Speaker 7 (31:12):
Yeah, just check out that person's company's headcount three years
from now, you know. I mean I talk to people
who work at that firm and they told me they're
going to be cutting a lot of workers due to AI.
So if you're the head of the company, you might
have to say something positive about the adaptability of the economy.
But you know, I talked to folks over dinner, privately,
(31:35):
over drinks, and they all think that this is real
and it's going to be a buzz saw through their orgs.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Holly is calling in from Houston, Texas. Holly, are you
worried about AI? Taking your job.
Speaker 17 (31:49):
Hi, I am yes, So I currently work as a
customer's success team manager at a tech company. We're not
fully a tech company, but tech is a big part
of the product, and like, very gradually we are using
AI more and more to assist our customers and building
(32:11):
that out, and we're doing it in a very like
grassroots kind of homemade way. And it's a startup company,
and so you know, a lot of people on our
team are like super worried about themselves being replaced. And
to me, it's kind of a reflection of the value
and quality of the product. Like if we're saying, you know,
(32:33):
it's just like luxury product, but if we're saying, like, hey,
a robot can help you instead of a human, we're
sort of devaluing our product in itself, and I'm feeling
a little bit disillusioned by it personally. I've been trying
to grow in my career and actually I'm looking to
study information science, like that's the path I want to go.
(32:54):
I actually used to be a teacher before I did this,
and so anyway, I'm kind of curious to hear thoughts
on information science and areas where might be where job
areas in that field where they might be safer from
AI taking over people.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Holly, thank you very much for that call. Ena, What
do you think, Well, I.
Speaker 6 (33:16):
Think if you're managing information, if you're sorting it, if
you're doing it, those are the things that AI is
really good at. So I think it's in any of
these fields, it's going to need to be critical thinking.
It's going to be need to think of new products
that you can deliver once you have the ability to
shift the information in all sorts of interesting ways, versus
(33:37):
being really good at moving those pieces of language around,
because that's what the AI models are really good at.
And I think of these problems that we're talking about
the Goldman Sachs example, this example is these are the
problems if we get AI right, and we absolutely need
to spend time on these. There's also the problems if
we get AI wrong, and that's everything from the robots
(33:58):
taking over, but it's also what the first voice you
had in there was talking about in terms of our
relationships with AI. I do think there's an opportunity for
AI to help seniors, to help advance healthcare and mental
healthcare that aren't out there. But boy, you've got to
really do that well if you're giving mental health care.
So that's an example where I think AI has a
(34:19):
role to play, but it's important to get it right.
But the job picture, which we talk about a lot
but not enough, is this happens even if we get
the AI right well.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
And you heard it in her voice there, in Holly's
voice there, just like how distressing it is to kind
of be training your replacement in a way. She's like
digging her own career grave there and how And.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
We wrote this week that everyone is actually training their
AI replacements. That's the stage of the economy we're in.
You know, it used to be just data labelers in
third world countries. Now it's all Americans are probably in
one way or another, training our AI replacements quite literally.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Daniel is calling in from Minneapolis. Daniel, go ahead with
your thoughts.
Speaker 10 (35:01):
Hi, thank you. I work in tech support and it's
been a very good career for me for twenty years.
And what I've what I'm noticing is that I think
AI has already replaced entry level tech support jobs, and
it's it's already on its way to replacing the next
tier of support as well.
Speaker 14 (35:22):
Uh.
Speaker 10 (35:22):
And I work at a software company where these tools
are are encouraged and very bullish on AI, and I
find myself I'm in more of a tier three position,
but I find myself I think it's only a matter
of time before it comes from me as well.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So what are you going to do about it?
Speaker 10 (35:42):
I right now, I'm I'm I'm just trying to get
a hand handle on AI and and learn more about
it and try to become adept with it because my
other options are like what to become a programmer, But
that's that's not a good past.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
So Daniel, thank you, Andrew Yang. One thing I think
about is as each of these callers, if they're right
that AI is going to take their job. I mean,
if we end up with millions or tens of millions
or one hundred million people in this country that are
out of work after spending their whole life getting ready
for a career, building themselves up in that career, what's going.
Speaker 7 (36:18):
To happen disintegration, strife, despair, radicalization, conflict, a dissolution of
what we currently think of as the United States of America.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
That's all on the table.
Speaker 7 (36:33):
And when I talked about this back in twenty nineteen,
twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
I felt very dystopian.
Speaker 7 (36:40):
But I got to say, guys, I mean, like, do
we really think we're trending more towards utopia or dystopia.
I mean, there's a lot of value being generated here,
and if it was being shared broadly, a lot of
these people that are calling right now might actually feel
more optimistic where they'd say, Hey, my job's going to
be eliminated, but what next? You know, what are the
things that I would like to be doing instead of
(37:02):
feeling like you're hopping from one island to another while
the water level is rising.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
M Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Let's go to Frank, who
is in Boston, Massachusetts. Frank, go ahead, are you worried
about and I'm taking your job?
Speaker 14 (37:23):
I am, and I'm also worried about that they're gonna
take it. They're gonna and these from what I stand,
the process or these AI centers are gonna eat up
a lot of our energy, is gonna eat up a
lot of our water. And like the gentlemen just say,
it's gonna if we do. If they do take away
all these jobs are going to cause strife. And that's
probably the reason why these guys were bending. Then the
(37:46):
other day with Donald Trump. They need an authoritarian government
in order to get this thing on, to get this
thing to the level that they want, instead of of
the regulations that we're being imposed on them in the
last administration. And I think that's one thing that they
(38:06):
are not looking out for that there are other factors
that this type of technology is going to end up
causing to the society.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Right, Yeah, a great point, Frank, And in Afreida, I'm
glad we brought up the issue of energy and water
usage and all of that. We could do a whole
show just on that, because if we're talking about people
having less money coming in, they're also probably going to
have more money going out for energy bills because they're
competing with data centers for the energy.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
Yeah, and that obviously shouldn't be the case. I mean,
we need to decide how much energy is needed for
this industry and the industry should be paying for it.
And right now what you're seeing is in many cases,
the individuals near these data centers are seeing their electrical
rates surge. And that's I mean, to me hard to
(38:54):
explain to a homeowner that this new data center that's
come in is not only not creating jobs, but it's
driving up your utility bills, and I think we do
have to look at the energy and the water usage.
I will say the tech industry has a pretty good
track record of lowering that over time, that things get
more efficient, but we have made negative progress. It used
(39:15):
to be that the Googles and Microsofts of the world
were leading the way to clean energy and data centers
that used almost no carbon because they were operating on renewables.
And what we've seen in the last couple of years
is that kind of go out the window because demand
is so high. In some of these cases, these fancy
new data centers are being powered by gas generators.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
You know, forgive me for the broad question, but you're
talking about water and I'm wondering, do you have any
information on the effect AI could have on farming jobs,
because some of the people I'm writing in talking about that.
Speaker 6 (39:46):
Yeah, I mean, farming's an interesting one because there are
these examples, and you know, we can easily get to
us centric. You know, you can use AI to explain
what you should ideally do on a piece of land,
and if we get that information at the right time
to a subsistence farmer in a developing country. You know,
it can be the difference between eating and not eating
(40:07):
and feeding the family. So there are opportunities here. I
think the idea that medical advice that's been limited and
only the rich can afford, is broadly distributed. That's a
good thing. So there are good things that can come
out of this, even at the planetary scale. But again,
it takes thought, and it takes making sure that we're
(40:28):
using these things in the right way, and that's the
how do we do the AI and that's a whole
separate question.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
This is a call coming in from Stamford, Connecticut, just
outside New York City. Donna is on a line ten. Donna,
go ahead, Yes.
Speaker 18 (40:43):
Hi there. So I'm actually a career coach. So not
only am I working with people struggling to find work
from you know, people in their twenties, computer science majors, copywriters,
the twenty five years experience, but myself, you know, just
like therapists, I too could be replaced eventually with agent AI.
(41:06):
I've been to workshops where we're being trained to create
you know, AI agents.
Speaker 19 (41:12):
To replace us.
Speaker 14 (41:13):
So you know we're.
Speaker 18 (41:15):
Learning that that as well, but I'm experiencing it firsthand.
With many clients of all agents, Well, what do.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
You say to them?
Speaker 18 (41:26):
Well, that's the that's the big question. I mean, there
are still a lot of things people can do that
require those skills that you were talking about earlier that
aren't you know, computerized. I mean today one of my
clients is trying to get back into the workforce, and
(41:50):
you know, I asked her what are passions of what
she enjoys doing and she came up, you know, with
the whole list of them, and she has you know,
as we kind of talk through it, there are options
for her to become an improv trainer or you know,
help them work with young people doing recreational activities, and
(42:13):
those are activities that can't be replaced you know, via rost.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
At least not yet. At least not yet, Donna and
Andrew Yang. The one thing I will say is improv
well fun and very important, doesn't usually make you a
lot of money.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (42:30):
One of the things that I'd advise really is trying
to reduce your personal spending and your burn rate unfortunately.
I mean, you want to try and maintain some flexibility
and ability to invest or make transitions or maybe even
try and start something.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
If that's realistic.
Speaker 7 (42:46):
Because it's going to get really rough out there, and
the more adaptable and proactive you are, the better the world.
Where you could apply it for a job and expect
the job and then be there for years and years
and then maybe eventually retire. I mean, those days are
unfortunately disappearing.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Nevy is calling in from Chicago. Nevy, go ahead. Are
you worried about AI taking your job?
Speaker 15 (43:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 20 (43:10):
I am. I also work as a therapist. I do
think there will be always be people who will prefer
and speak out human therapists, So I don't think it's
going to go away entirely. But I'm more concerned about
the harm that could be done as people using AI
as being therapist. AI will always have the bias of
(43:32):
whoever trains it, And in the therapy world we talk
about cultural competence and how important that is, and I
imagine that these AI that therapy the charity labs, whereas
therapy chat lots will have lots of biases and will
not be able to accurately help people. For example, I
(43:55):
work with a lot of transgender clients. I'm concerned about
its being used in harmful ways, like as a conversion
therapy tool. Especially with the way this administration is moving
more broadly, AI will just constantly validate you. It will
just validate you over and over and like, tell me
(44:15):
you're doing nothing wrong. People need to be challenged, They
need confrontation. It is through confrontation and human relationships that
we grow and feel and that can't happen using AI.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
And I've also noticed, well, let me let me take that,
let bit devy, let me let me stop you there,
because we're running out of time. But you know, afraid
brings up an interesting point there about the data into
the AI. And also, by the way, I'm sure every
company is trying to figure out how to make sure
that they get you know, talked about first when you
ask chat GPT a question about where where can I
(44:50):
get a garden hose? You know, right now? And like
is should we be concerned about the data that's going
into the AI and how that's going to tell us
what to do and how that'll be used going forward.
Speaker 6 (45:02):
Absolutely, And we've been writing about the issues around training
data and the need for culturally broad training data, and
that's come under fire in this administration. I think the
more dangerous thing is we're going to have a fight
over how these chatbots answer things, and we are seeing that.
We're seeing that already both from the government with the
(45:24):
executive Order that basically wants its views of the world reinforced.
We're also seeing people who have active harm interest towards
communities like the trans community create their own AI. So
Elon Musk is explicitly trying to change the way the
algorithms answer from what even the grock itself came up
(45:47):
with from its training data. And he's finally created a
version that shares his hatred for trans people.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, I'm going to sneak in one more called real
Fast here Daniel in Detroit, Michigan. Daniel, go ahead with
your thoughts.
Speaker 19 (46:01):
Hey, I am a truck driver in coming out of
Detroit and a I've heard is they're trying to get
autonomous driving in the industry. And I've been in a
taka A friend of mine we took a trip from
Toledo to Clearfield, Pennsylvania, and I wanted to see if
(46:25):
he could actually do the entire trip without touching the
steering wheel. He was not able to. He actually had
to do so several times. And I do think it
will come into the industry, but I think for twenty
thirty years down the road.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
You don't think it's there. We're there yet. Well, and
I appreciate you calling while you're at work in the truck.
Of course, some people have been in Waimo's where that
you can sit there without touching the steering wheel for
a while. Andrew Young, I just want to wrap up
with you in a final thought on this. We just
had this election this week, and I have to say
I didn't hear much in any of the campaigns about
(47:04):
AI and jobs and if it is going to be
as disruptive as what we've been hearing this hour in
all kinds of fields, why aren't people talking about it?
Why aren't our leaders talking about it? Or what should
they be saying about what needs to be done right now?
Speaker 7 (47:18):
The only genuine solution would be to broadly distribute the
gains and value from AI to the American people via
something like a universal basic income or freedom dividend. And
because no political figure wants to actually rease a problem
that they're not going to suggest a solution to people,
shove it off to the sideline because they'd rather do
(47:39):
the entire polarized tribal warfare, tit for tat. It's a
weakness of the two party system that you don't need
to solve the underlying problem. You just need to be
a little bit less unpopular than the other guy.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
That is a Forward Party founder and a Noble Mobile
founder and CEO Andrew Yang. We've also been speaking with
Axe as Chief Technology correspondent, Ena Freed. Thanks so much
to both of you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
Thank you check out Noble Mobile. I want to save
you all some money.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
I'm going to charge you. I'm going to charge you
for this ad Andrew Yang Tolliver. I will say that
was one of my favorite shows that we have ever done.
By the way, we are going to continue this conversation
in a couple weeks, not just about jobs, but talking
about whether you're excited or scared by AI and whether
you think it will actually take over and destroy us.
But next week we're going to be right back here
with the BBC's chief International correspondent. At least you said,
(48:30):
taking your questions about world news from the Middle East
to Ukraine to Venezuela to tariffs.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
Get your questions ready and subscribe to the middle wherever
you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single episode.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Well thanks to our friends here at kate Era in
Dallas for hosting us this week, Jackson Wisdorf and Jeff Penfield.
The Middle is brought to you by Long Noook Media,
distributed by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced
by Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, Sam Burmistas, John barth Ona Kadeshler,
and Brandon Condritz. Our technical director is Steve Mork. Thanks
to our satellite radio listeners, our podcast audience, and the
(49:03):
hundreds of public radio stations making it possible for people
across the country to listen to the Middle, I'm Jeremy
Hobson and I will talk to you next week.
Support for the Middle comes from the stations that air
the show and from you. Thanks for making a donation
at listen toothemiddle dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson coming to you
from kr in Dallas, Texas, along with our house DJ Tolliver, who,
unlike a certain Spotify DJ, is not AI generated. Isn't
that right, Tolliver?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
You know what's messed up? He does kind of sound.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Like me, he does. He sounds like you.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Am I so replaceable?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
No? I don't think so. By the way, thing I
learned Tolliver, I am broadcasting actually from the temporary studios
of KIRA, which is actually the studios of the oldest
radio station in the state of Texas, WRR. It was
licensed in nineteen twenty two, which is kind of amazing.
Thing I also learned the Dallas Fort Worth area is
the number one market for the largest private employer in
(00:54):
the country that we Walmart. There were over one hundred
and fifty Walmart and Sam's Club stores in the area
and so they just built one of their first automated
distribution centers in nearby Lancaster, Texas. Now these facilities can
use robots to package up groceries to send to their stores.
They even put like fragile items like eggs and peaches
(01:14):
at the top so they don't break. Very smart robots,
and of course these facilities mean that fewer humans will
be needed going forward. And we heard just in the
last week or so that the nation's second largest private employee,
that would be Amazon, is cutting fourteen thousand jobs. Although
the CEO Andy Jasse has claimed AI isn't just replacing
(01:36):
people at the company, it may actually lead to more
human jobs at Amazon. Here he is in an interview
with CNBC.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
Yes, like with every technical transformation, there will be fewer
people doing some of the jobs that the technology actually
starts to automate. So there're gonna be other jobs, and
we're going to hire more people in AI and more
people in robotics, and they're gonna be other jobs. Is
the technology wants you to go hire that will hire
overtime too.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, that may be the case or maybe not. But
a report out this week found there were more job
cuts in this country in October than any October in
more than twenty years, and that report cited AI disruption
as one of the key reasons. So we want to
know from you. Do you think that AI will take
your job or you worried about it? Tolliver? How can
people reach us?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
You can call us an eight four four four Middle
that's eight four four four six four three three five three,
or you can write to us at listen to the
Middle dot com. And I'm looking at all your comments
on YouTube and all that.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
So joining us this our businessman Andrew Yang, founder of
the Forward Party and founder and CEO of Noble Mobile,
which pays you to use your phone less. Andrew Yang,
It's great to have you here in the Middle.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Thanks for having me. Great to be back well.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And Ena Freed is also back with us, senior technology
correspondent at AXIOSA. Welcome to you.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
Good to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So before we go to the phone's Andrew Yang, there
is a report from Bernie Sanders and his Senate committee
that says one hundred million jobs are going to be
lost to AI in the next ten years. What do
you think about that prediction?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Order of magnitude Probably about right.
Speaker 7 (03:07):
Unfortunately, about forty four percent of American jobs are either
repetitive manual or repetitive cognitive, and given the size of
the workforce, that's about one hundred million plus workers. I
think it might take a little bit longer than ten years,
but that it's going to be excruciating for a lot
of Americans, and we're already seeing the early impact.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
You know, free to Do you agree with that? What
does your reporting tell you how many jobs are at
risk and how soon?
Speaker 8 (03:36):
Well?
Speaker 6 (03:37):
I think it's it's going to be bumping uneven. I
don't know where we get to exactly, but there's certainly
a wide swath of jobs that AI is showing itself
to be remarkably good at, more so than we thought
maybe a year or so ago, in terms of actual performance.
It turns out the companies, though, are having a tougher
time doing it. So the technology exists to automate the job,
(03:58):
but what's hard for a lot of companies is the
people processes that they've built are for human workers. So
I think we're going to have this couple of year
period where companies want to use AI but struggle to
do so. But I think the underlying technology is likely
to radically reshape the nature of work.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And Andrew, what jobs do you think are most at risk?
What are the jobs that where people really should be
worried right now about AI taking them right now.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It's repetitive white collar work.
Speaker 7 (04:31):
They are about two million Americans who still work in
call centers, or at least there were. I bet that
number is shrinking very fast. I speak to CEOs and
they tell me that they're replacing their customer service departments
with AI, and that the customers are totally fine with it.
It used to be that when we got that bot
on the phone, we'd say, hey, zero zero zero person
(04:52):
perthin human human human. But now the interface has gotten
good enough where you're like, oh, I don't hate this,
it's not bad. And so you can see those two
million jobs disappear pretty quickly. Law firms are going to
be hiring fewer associates, banks, insurance firms, accounting companies.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
You know.
Speaker 7 (05:13):
The way I visualize it is that all of those
big office buildings that had tons of cubicles and human beings,
they're the equivalent of the factory that had the robots show.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Up in the nineties.
Speaker 7 (05:27):
In this case, the AI isn't as big and conspicuous,
but the AI is there, and a lot of those
cubicles are going to be emptied out.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
But okay, so if you think about lawyers. Though you
know they go to school, they learn a lot of things.
I mean, aren't they still useful? Isn't it still useful
to have a lawyer who can think with a brain
and say, actually, this is how we should argue this case.
Speaker 6 (05:51):
Well, certainly, having the critical thinking skills, somebody needs to
have those at the top of the food chain. But
what you're seeing in a lot of the cases is
that the work that sort of got you to be
that senior partner, a lot of that work underneath that.
That sort of people built up the skills over years
and years. But a lot of what they were doing
(06:12):
to build those skills is gruntwork document review. If you
look at the types of stuff that a first or
second year law student or lawyer was doing an associate,
they were not the greatest jobs, but they were doing
it with the promise that they'd be able to work
their way up. The challenge right now is we're creating
a system in which you're going to want somebody who
(06:32):
has years of practical experience in the field to be
the ultimate decision maker to interact with the AI. But
how do you ever get that if all the jobs
that get you there, and I know this is something
Andrews talked a lot about. So again, we're going to
have to be really thoughtful, and so far I don't
see a lot of evidence that we are in sort
of designing systems that work better with humans to get
(06:55):
to the kind of future I think any of us want. Unfortunately,
I think we're bare ahead towards the future where a
lot of people get laid off because of AI, but
there's not the human judgment at the top of the
funnel that's needed to ensure even that experience. You know, Again,
to Andrew's point, I think, you know, you might be
able to call a call center and have a satisfactory experience,
(07:18):
but the important thing is that when that bought fails,
you're going to have a human who's really experienced that's
able to take that escalated call. And you don't get
there if nobody's learning how the system works in the
first place.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
So is that the biggest problem, then, Andrew? The entry
level positions where people will not be able to learn
and grow and go up the ladder because they never
got those first skills because they're that job is unnecessary.
Speaker 7 (07:41):
Yes, I feel terrible for the young people who are
set to graduate from college this year, next year, or
the year after that. And I talked to the CEO
of a publicly traded tech company who said to me
confidentially that they're going to replace fifty percent or so
of their workers the next three four years. And his
(08:02):
daughter knows this, and his daughter's a college student. So
his daughter's like, well, I guess I'm not going to
get a job at your company, and I'm probably not
going to get a job at a tech a tech
company that looks like yours. I was an unhappy attorney
for a number of months. And the way the law
firms used to be structured as a pyramid, like you know,
was saying that you have a person at the top
and then a bunch of grunts trying to get there.
(08:24):
Now I joke that instead of a pyramid, it's going
to be a column, because you don't want an army
of first and second and third years that you're essentially
paying to train in the hopes that some of them
can work their way up and become a money generator.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Instead, you want to have.
Speaker 7 (08:42):
Like an experienced person at the top and then AI
below them. And the AI is cheaper, faster and you
might hire like one or two a law student, law
school graduates, whereas before you might have hired ten or twenty,
and so that there's going to be a massive loss
generation of young white collar wanna be workers.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Unfortunately, uh Ina, let's get out of law firms for
just a second. Let me ask you something else that
also involves people getting into a professional entry level. Are
AI deciding if you get that job interview right now,
no matter what the industry is, Are they the ones
that are picking which resume gets gets selected to be
looked at?
Speaker 6 (09:23):
Yeah, Unfortunately, we're in this really awkward time where everyone's
using AI, and again the systems just don't exist for
it to be done well. So yes, an AI is
scanning all those entries, and of course the bar to
submit those entries has gotten a lot lower because an
individual can use chat, GPT and say write me one
(09:44):
hundred cover letters, and so we have this weird thing
where you can generate all the content you want and
then it's too much for the employer or We're going
to see this in a lot of things and they're
using AI to screen it. I think to some degree
that that's going to increase for the next couple of years.
The importance of existing relationships that human relationships become more
(10:07):
powerful in this short term because AI is going to
get in the way of our communications. Even though it's
making it easier for me to refine my communications on
an individual level, it's giving everyone that capability. So millions
of people can apply for a single job. An employer
can't sort through that, so they're going to use AI
to sort through the millions who's most likely to get hired.
(10:28):
The friend of the.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
CEO, let me just quickly ask you, Andrew, just for
a little piece of good news, what jobs are least
likely to be replaced by AI.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
There are non repetitive cognitive and non repetitive manual jobs.
And non repetitive manual jobs can be jobs that don't
require a lot of education. And the example at I
like to use is hotel room cleaner. That's actually very,
very difficult to automate. If you can imagine a robot
trying to go into a hotel room after you leave
it and change the bedshet and clean up that weird
(11:02):
stay in you less or or whatever happens to be like,
you know that that's something that a human is going
to do. Now, that's not a job we all want.
That's not a job where you're kids like, oh great news,
you know.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like especially if you've got especially if you've got like
a Jerry Seinfelder George Costanzas saying one tuck and one
not tuck for the beds, stand by a second tolliver.
As we've said, one of the most shocking predictions about
what AI and automation will do to jobs comes from
Senator Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, and he has some thoughts about what to do
about it. Here are a couple of his ideas from
a video he released last month.
Speaker 8 (11:35):
Workers need a seat at the table to best determine
how AI is used in their companies. If Tesla workers
were on their corporate board, I doubt very much that
they would be rewarding Elon Musk with a trillion dollar
pay package. Third, we must greatly increase profit sharing at
(11:56):
our nation's largest corporations. In my view, workers should receive
at least twenty percent of the stocking companies they work for.
Corporate profits should not just be going to enrich wealthy
stockholders and the billionaires who own them.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
And we'll talk about some of those ideas coming right up.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I bet we will, we will, and we'll be right.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Back with the middle. This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy
Hobson at KIRA in Dallas. This week of just Tuning In.
We are a national call in show focused on elevating
voices from the middle geographically, politically, philosophically, or maybe you
just want to meet in the middle. This hour, we're
asking you, are you afraid that AI will take your job?
Tolliver the number again, please.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four sixty four three three five three. You can also
write to us, listen to the Middle dot com or
on all social media.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
I'm joined by Forward Party, founder and founder and CEO
of Noble Mobile, Andrew Yang, and Axios chief technology correspondent
Ina Fried And the phone lines are lighting up, but
before we get to them, let me just ask you,
Andrew Yang, about what we've just heard Bernie Sanders say
there that he thinks that because AI will replace so
many workers, the workers are going to have more of
a stake in their companies in order to make money
(13:06):
own some of the stocks sit on the boards. Is
that realistic?
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I'm not sure how realistic it is.
Speaker 7 (13:13):
But again, think about the young person who might not
be hired by that company, or the person who's sending
out ten thousand AI resumes only to get rejected by AI.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Even if that company.
Speaker 7 (13:24):
Were to be more equitable in sharing the profits with
its workers, if you're on the outside looking in, you're
still going to be very sad. And the majority of
Americans aren't working at one of these tesla type companies
where there are profits that could be distributed. So I'm
not sure how realistic it is and I'm not sure
if it solves the problem that we're describing for most people.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
And are any companies trying to figure out how to
make sure that the workers continue to get paid versus
just reducing headcounts so that they can increase their profitability
with more AI.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
Yeah, I think there are some companies that are looking
at this not so much as a cost cutting exercise,
but how can we serve more people if we combine
our employees and AI. And I do think it will
be interesting in certain fields. I think there will be
some companies that are more successful. For example, we talked
about customer service and call centers, and look, if you've
(14:19):
already outsourced your call so your call centers to a
company who's paid by the call and incentivized to spend
as little time as possible, You're probably not going to
be able to turn those call listeners into great representatives
of your company. But if you're a luxury firm where
customer care is still a real core part of what
(14:41):
you do, I think AI does hold the opportunity to
turn a smaller group of humans into sort of boutique
and concierge service while letting AI do some of the stuff.
So I do think there are some companies that are saying,
how can we call on twice as many customers? Not
how can we have half as many?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So people, let's get to the phones. Austin is in Carrollton, Texas. Austin,
Are you worried that AI will take your job?
Speaker 9 (15:08):
Yeah? Sure so at this very present moment. No, in
the near future. Absolutely So. I'm a software engineer, and
I think initially a lot of people hear that and
they think that you're in the safe zone. You're the
guys working on this stuff. But AI is very much
a text processor, very good at reading a large amounts
(15:28):
of texts, making analysis on that, and spitting it back
out in a pretty concise way, and coding is all
writing text. So while I have ten years of experience,
right now we're at the stage where these advanced AI
models are spitting out tons of code, and a lot
of companies are saying, hey, look at this code. You
as the experienced engineer, look at this code.
Speaker 10 (15:49):
Is it good?
Speaker 9 (15:49):
Put it in the production, let it go. I don't
know how long until the AI is going to be
doing that part for me. At the moment, this stuff
is moving so very quickly. Yeah, I've seen the stuff
go from spitting out some code that I looked at
said that scarbage. I'm going to write this in fifteen
minutes and be done with it.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Are you Are you doing anything to prepare yourself? Are
you thinking I'm going to have to change careers?
Speaker 9 (16:17):
Honestly, it's the skill set mindset for me at the moment.
Prompt engineering is what they call the people that are
running bi's and there's people that are very very good
at it. It's a skill I have not been very
keen on as an AI skeptic, but I see the
wall coming and I realized that if I don't get
on this, you know, I'm going to be I'm going
(16:39):
to be behind that AI serge for sure.
Speaker 11 (16:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Okay, Austin, thank you so much for that call. Both
of our guests were nodding as you as you said that. Ina,
your thoughts about that as software engineering?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Yeah, well I heard two things. I mean, one, obviously,
the tech industry is actually you know the phrase always
eating your own dog food. But you know, as the
caller points out, is actually really good when it's got
a structured language. Encoding is a perfect example of that.
So it is one of the areas that's being replaced
the most. But it was actually the second part of
what he was saying that struck me, And that's this
(17:12):
notion of, you know, really leaning into the AI technology
and whether you like AI or hate it, I think
there's a great case to be made that individually, the
best thing you can do for yourself is to get
really familiar with the technology. Be that person at your
company that knows how to use AI. First of all,
you'll be one of the most valuable to your company,
(17:33):
you know, unless and until they replace you. And also
that's sort of the mindset that probably you need to
get into. Plus, the AI is just good. I only
half jokingly said to someone last week that you know,
even if your job, even if your goal is to
get rid of AI, you probably should be using AI
to make the case for that, because it's gotten that good.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
With a lot of emojis, because AI loves emojis, especially
the right and mdash which Yeah, Claire is calling in
from Birmingham, Alabama. Claire, do you think AI? Are you
worried AI is going to take your job?
Speaker 12 (18:10):
Not at the moment, but I'm curious whether I should be.
I'm a high school teacher, and I feel like that's
a job that falls under the category that you described
of a non repetitive cognitive task. And in my opinion,
I don't see AI being able to do a teaching
job well. But there are so many AI platforms like
Magic School AI that are already doing some teaching tasks
(18:32):
for teachers that it seems like that could grow in
the future and eventually potentially replace teachers altogether.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Andrew Yang is a teacher at risk.
Speaker 7 (18:42):
I think teachers are among the safest because if you
think about the environment, you can't replace a human teacher
with like a screen and a bot and say, hey,
have at it for the kids. Now, some of the
tasks could be some of the lesson planning, some of
the curriculum design, but there's going to be a human teacher.
And part of it also is like who do the
(19:04):
teachers work for. They work for a school district. You know,
in school districts I think are going to be budget constrained.
But it's not like, you know, if the head of
a school district says, hey, guys, guess what we're firing
on the teachers, were replacing them with bots that they
get to raise. I mean, that's not the way it
works in that environment. So I think that high school
(19:25):
teachers are among the last people who should be concerned
about being directly replaced.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
Certainly made their jobs much tougher. Ch at GPT for
the moment is disrupting education, but yeah, I think it.
Also there's a couple of skills involved in being a
teacher that AI is no good at. Certainly, dealing with
the emotional needs of kids is pretty high on the list,
but empathy in general and care I think are aspects
that I would not expect AI to be very good
(19:53):
at anytime.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Soon I was keeping the kid from running out of
the room, you know, Like I mean the AI would
need arms and legs.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I was talking to a professor this week who is
going to all oral exams instead of having people do
written exams, because at least then they have to learn
a skill that maybe, I mean, maybe it won't be
useful in the future, but being able to talk and actually,
you know, explain your thoughts and think about things, maybe
that will be something that will be more useful in
an age of AI. One is calling in from San Antonio, Texas. One,
(20:22):
go ahead with your thoughts. Are you worried AI is
going to take your job?
Speaker 13 (20:27):
The I opposite. I think that it's going to make
my job better. But that's a personal stance. I'm a
professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
I conduct research on AI. I particularly have two projects
from ANIH International Science Foundation to train people on how
to use AI to conduct in complex sophisticated tasks. We
(20:52):
are witnessing. I believe a profoundly disruptive perios in human history,
probably comparible to the intention of writing. Many jobs will disappear.
It's going to cause an immediate shock, but the opportunity
that is opening are probably going to compensate for the
pain that we will experience in the short term. And
(21:15):
I believe that as a society we have to own
this problem. We don't want to live in a society
in which the core cannot eat and the wealthy cannot sleep.
That led to the French Revolution. So I think that
there is a conversation that pts to we had about
what is the social responsibility of communities and businesses toward
(21:38):
people because people is the foundation of society. At the
same time, we need to train people to use AI
in the future. What I believe is that AI will
be in everything we do. We're moving into a future
which people will not write directly, will direct agents to.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Write for that well, and it's already it's already in
just about everything that we do. But I appreciate that
call on and Andrew Yang. Some optimism there from somebody
who's deeply involved in AI already. I mean, do you
see that can we get past the shock and see
a world where we have livelihoods or things to do
with our time all day long and make money?
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Was that caull turally optimistic?
Speaker 7 (22:24):
When I ran for president in twenty twenty, and many
of you remember I called for universal basic income or
a freedom dividend of one thousand dollars a month, because
I thought that AI was going to displace millions and
millions of American workers. Our GDP right now is eighty
five thousand per person, which I thought was enough to
start providing a foundation of one thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
I started Noble.
Speaker 7 (22:47):
Mobile to try and lower everyone's wireless bills because right
now Americans are spending eighty three a month on our
wireless whereas Europeans are spending thirty five. Because I think
getting money back into Americans hands is the way we
get through this mass. And you can be optimistic about
the opportunities that a certain subset of Americans will have
via AI, but we can all clearly see that millions
(23:08):
are going to be on the outside looking in unless
our government gets its act together and starts distributing the
gains from AI more quickly and broadly. And as you
can tell, I'm energized about this because I called this
stuff happening in twenty nineteen, and you were there with me, Jeremy,
so you know, like it's incredibly frustrating that now things
(23:30):
have come to pass and we're wondering what to do.
It's obvious what we should do. We should eradicate poverty.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
By the way, just to clear up for our listeners,
I wasn't working on your campaign. I just interviewed you.
That's how Oh yeah, no, no, yeah, you know I
was right there with you. I was wondering, no Tolliver,
what is coming in online? And listened to the middle
dot com from our list.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Sure, mel in Colorado says AI was a factor when
I was laid off earlier this fall, along with federal
budget cut with no social safety nets, recipe for disaster
for an entire generational millennials who are told to get
college degrees to succeed. Let's go with gwyn and West Michigan.
She says, I'm a substance used counselor. I chose this
career recently because I think the human touch will always
(24:14):
be appreciated to the counselor. Also shout out to Andrew Yang.
I voted for him and still have my Yang merch.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
There you go, let's get back to back to the funds.
Steve is calling from Keene, New Hampshire. Steve, are you
worried about Ai taking your job?
Speaker 14 (24:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (24:33):
I am and I'm a career musician and a music teacher,
and ways we've been dealing with AI or computers or
machines taking music out of our hands for many years.
And the prompter asked me if I thought, you know,
there was a chance of music being completely taken over,
(24:56):
eradicating composers and live musicians. I'm not sure that's pos
But broadly, culturally, I worry about the effect and the
depreciation of value in traditional arts and human arts of
music as we take increasing advantage of things that are
(25:17):
more easy to access.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, there was a I think there was a symphony
that was complete, there was unfinished, and then somebody found
a way to complete it with AI or however AI
would would do it. Steve a very interesting enafried a musician.
I mean arts, I would think would be something that
would you know, be a later profession that would be
taken over by it, you would think, But it's not.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
And that's because a lot of people in the arts
make their money today commercially, and so photographers have seen
this for a long time. With digital I think other
artisans are seeing this, particularly if their work is somehow commercial.
So you're seeing the ability of AI to do sounds
and graphic arts for Hollywood, and I think that's where
(26:04):
we're going to see the pressure. I do actually think
there will be a renaissance in human appreciation for human
created art. I think that will be a likely side effect.
The question is how many people will be able to
afford to enjoy it. I think there will be plenty
of people that have more time to produce it. I'd
like to live in a world where there's an economy
for people to support them. There's a saying that, you know,
(26:27):
we wanted AI to do the laundry so that we
could create art, and we're having the opposite, And I
think there's some truth to that. But I do think
certainly where some of this nets out is that human
creativity becomes an artisan good that people want to experience
and will pay for. Again, we just have to build
(26:47):
an economy where they have the resources, they have.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
The money at right.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
And Jeremy, you know a big part of my business
is right and use it for TV. Right And I'm
nervous man.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, gotta be hones, right.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Tolliver's song was on the last episode of Abbot Elementary.
He's a huge star outside of his middle fame. Nathan
is in Barria, Kentucky. I hope I said that right, Nathan.
But tell us what you are thinking about AI and
your job.
Speaker 15 (27:14):
Hi, so one, Andrew Yang, thanks so much for being
on here. Your robot tax great idea. The Luddites in
seventeen ninety also have the same idea with taxing the
power loom. But I'm not worried my job is going
to be taken by AI. I'm a student. I worry
my therapist job will be taken by AI right now.
(27:38):
Surveys say that around twenty percent or more of gen
Z and younger are willing to have an intimate relationship
of various types with conversational AI. And you know, it's
a lot easier to talk to a screen about deeply
personal issues than a human sitting in front of you.
(28:01):
With the Supreme Court trying to decide whether or not
talk therapy is a First Amendment right or not, we
might end up in a world where the chatbots aren't
licensed therapist, but you know, they're wellness apps, or they're
AI girlfriends or AI boyfriends. So I'm I'm very deeply
(28:23):
worried that this is a harm that we can see
coming at us. Yeah, with no breaks on it.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, Nathan, thank you a very good point, Andrew Yang.
It is true that a lot of people are using
AI for therapy and even for relationships like that movie Her.
Speaker 7 (28:42):
Yeah, and it's just going to increase in frequency. I
live in New York and there is a giant subway
takeover by a company called friend dot com and is
an amulet you an AI Friend, which seems dystopian to
someone like me, but my wife is convinced it going
to be a very popular product. That there are a
(29:02):
lot of people who really struggle making friends with social interaction,
and it's a lot easier if you have an AI
that introduces like or a therapist. I think it's just
going to pick up steam. And my joke would be like,
have you seen you know, a young person recently like that,
Like a lot of them are more comfortable with an
(29:26):
AI type relationship.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah. Again, our number is eight four four four middle
that's eight four four four six four three three five
three Tolliver. Not everyone is doomed, saying about the effects
of AI on jobs.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Yeah, here's what we found. The CEO of Goldman Sax,
David Solomon on CNBC's squawk Box last month.
Speaker 16 (29:46):
Technology has been having an impact on headcount, the way
people work, what workers you have, you know for decades
and decades and decades, and this I think one of
the things that's that's that's happening here that's a little
bit different is this is going at.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
A pace that's quicker.
Speaker 16 (30:00):
Yeah, and so because the pace is so quick, I
think there's a possibility that there's a little bit more
volatility or you know, an unsettled transition, you know, around
certain job functions and things like that. But at the
end of the day, we have an incredibly flexible, nimble economy.
We have a great ability to adapt and adjust.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
You know, something tells me, Tulliver that the CEO of
Goldman Sachs is going to be okay. Whether we adapt
an adjust or not, that's just I don't know for sure,
but it just feels like that's the case.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, he doesn't need to go fund me. I think
he's gonna be fun.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I don't think so. We'll be right back with more
of your calls coming up on the middle. This is
the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. In this hour, we're asking
you if you're afraid that AI will take your job.
You can call us at eight four four four Middle.
That's eight four four four six four three three five three.
You can reach out a listen to the Middle dot com.
I am joined by Axios Chief technology correspondent Ina Fried
and Forward Party founder Andrew Yang. And just before we
(30:56):
get back to the phones, Andrew, you heard the CEO
of Goldman Sachs there saying, you know, we've been through
technological changes before. What about those people who say, you
know this is we've dealt with this and it's just
a fast pace, but we'll be okay.
Speaker 7 (31:12):
Yeah, just check out that person's company's headcount three years
from now, you know. I mean I talk to people
who work at that firm and they told me they're
going to be cutting a lot of workers due to AI.
So if you're the head of the company, you might
have to say something positive about the adaptability of the economy.
But you know, I talked to folks over dinner, privately,
(31:35):
over drinks, and they all think that this is real
and it's going to be a buzz saw through their orgs.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Holly is calling in from Houston, Texas. Holly, are you
worried about AI? Taking your job.
Speaker 17 (31:49):
Hi, I am yes, So I currently work as a
customer's success team manager at a tech company. We're not
fully a tech company, but tech is a big part
of the product, and like, very gradually we are using
AI more and more to assist our customers and building
(32:11):
that out, and we're doing it in a very like
grassroots kind of homemade way. And it's a startup company,
and so you know, a lot of people on our
team are like super worried about themselves being replaced. And
to me, it's kind of a reflection of the value
and quality of the product. Like if we're saying, you know,
(32:33):
it's just like luxury product, but if we're saying, like, hey,
a robot can help you instead of a human, we're
sort of devaluing our product in itself, and I'm feeling
a little bit disillusioned by it personally. I've been trying
to grow in my career and actually I'm looking to
study information science, like that's the path I want to go.
(32:54):
I actually used to be a teacher before I did this,
and so anyway, I'm kind of curious to hear thoughts
on information science and areas where might be where job
areas in that field where they might be safer from
AI taking over people.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Holly, thank you very much for that call. Ena, What
do you think, Well, I.
Speaker 6 (33:16):
Think if you're managing information, if you're sorting it, if
you're doing it, those are the things that AI is
really good at. So I think it's in any of
these fields, it's going to need to be critical thinking.
It's going to be need to think of new products
that you can deliver once you have the ability to
shift the information in all sorts of interesting ways, versus
(33:37):
being really good at moving those pieces of language around,
because that's what the AI models are really good at.
And I think of these problems that we're talking about
the Goldman Sachs example, this example is these are the
problems if we get AI right, and we absolutely need
to spend time on these. There's also the problems if
we get AI wrong, and that's everything from the robots
(33:58):
taking over, but it's also what the first voice you
had in there was talking about in terms of our
relationships with AI. I do think there's an opportunity for
AI to help seniors, to help advance healthcare and mental
healthcare that aren't out there. But boy, you've got to
really do that well if you're giving mental health care.
So that's an example where I think AI has a
(34:19):
role to play, but it's important to get it right.
But the job picture, which we talk about a lot
but not enough, is this happens even if we get
the AI right well.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
And you heard it in her voice there, in Holly's
voice there, just like how distressing it is to kind
of be training your replacement in a way. She's like
digging her own career grave there and how And.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
We wrote this week that everyone is actually training their
AI replacements. That's the stage of the economy we're in.
You know, it used to be just data labelers in
third world countries. Now it's all Americans are probably in
one way or another, training our AI replacements quite literally.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Daniel is calling in from Minneapolis. Daniel, go ahead with
your thoughts.
Speaker 10 (35:01):
Hi, thank you. I work in tech support and it's
been a very good career for me for twenty years.
And what I've what I'm noticing is that I think
AI has already replaced entry level tech support jobs, and
it's it's already on its way to replacing the next
tier of support as well.
Speaker 14 (35:22):
Uh.
Speaker 10 (35:22):
And I work at a software company where these tools
are are encouraged and very bullish on AI, and I
find myself I'm in more of a tier three position,
but I find myself I think it's only a matter
of time before it comes from me as well.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
So what are you going to do about it?
Speaker 10 (35:42):
I right now, I'm I'm I'm just trying to get
a hand handle on AI and and learn more about
it and try to become adept with it because my
other options are like what to become a programmer, But
that's that's not a good past.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
So Daniel, thank you, Andrew Yang. One thing I think
about is as each of these callers, if they're right
that AI is going to take their job. I mean,
if we end up with millions or tens of millions
or one hundred million people in this country that are
out of work after spending their whole life getting ready
for a career, building themselves up in that career, what's going.
Speaker 7 (36:18):
To happen disintegration, strife, despair, radicalization, conflict, a dissolution of
what we currently think of as the United States of America.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
That's all on the table.
Speaker 7 (36:33):
And when I talked about this back in twenty nineteen,
twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
I felt very dystopian.
Speaker 7 (36:40):
But I got to say, guys, I mean, like, do
we really think we're trending more towards utopia or dystopia.
I mean, there's a lot of value being generated here,
and if it was being shared broadly, a lot of
these people that are calling right now might actually feel
more optimistic where they'd say, Hey, my job's going to
be eliminated, but what next? You know, what are the
things that I would like to be doing instead of
(37:02):
feeling like you're hopping from one island to another while
the water level is rising.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
M Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Let's go to Frank, who
is in Boston, Massachusetts. Frank, go ahead, are you worried
about and I'm taking your job?
Speaker 14 (37:23):
I am, and I'm also worried about that they're gonna
take it. They're gonna and these from what I stand,
the process or these AI centers are gonna eat up
a lot of our energy, is gonna eat up a
lot of our water. And like the gentlemen just say,
it's gonna if we do. If they do take away
all these jobs are going to cause strife. And that's
probably the reason why these guys were bending. Then the
(37:46):
other day with Donald Trump. They need an authoritarian government
in order to get this thing on, to get this
thing to the level that they want, instead of of
the regulations that we're being imposed on them in the
last administration. And I think that's one thing that they
(38:06):
are not looking out for that there are other factors
that this type of technology is going to end up
causing to the society.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Right, Yeah, a great point, Frank, And in Afreida, I'm
glad we brought up the issue of energy and water
usage and all of that. We could do a whole
show just on that, because if we're talking about people
having less money coming in, they're also probably going to
have more money going out for energy bills because they're
competing with data centers for the energy.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
Yeah, and that obviously shouldn't be the case. I mean,
we need to decide how much energy is needed for
this industry and the industry should be paying for it.
And right now what you're seeing is in many cases,
the individuals near these data centers are seeing their electrical
rates surge. And that's I mean, to me hard to
(38:54):
explain to a homeowner that this new data center that's
come in is not only not creating jobs, but it's
driving up your utility bills, and I think we do
have to look at the energy and the water usage.
I will say the tech industry has a pretty good
track record of lowering that over time, that things get
more efficient, but we have made negative progress. It used
(39:15):
to be that the Googles and Microsofts of the world
were leading the way to clean energy and data centers
that used almost no carbon because they were operating on renewables.
And what we've seen in the last couple of years
is that kind of go out the window because demand
is so high. In some of these cases, these fancy
new data centers are being powered by gas generators.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
You know, forgive me for the broad question, but you're
talking about water and I'm wondering, do you have any
information on the effect AI could have on farming jobs,
because some of the people I'm writing in talking about that.
Speaker 6 (39:46):
Yeah, I mean, farming's an interesting one because there are
these examples, and you know, we can easily get to
us centric. You know, you can use AI to explain
what you should ideally do on a piece of land,
and if we get that information at the right time
to a subsistence farmer in a developing country. You know,
it can be the difference between eating and not eating
(40:07):
and feeding the family. So there are opportunities here. I
think the idea that medical advice that's been limited and
only the rich can afford, is broadly distributed. That's a
good thing. So there are good things that can come
out of this, even at the planetary scale. But again,
it takes thought, and it takes making sure that we're
(40:28):
using these things in the right way, and that's the
how do we do the AI and that's a whole
separate question.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
This is a call coming in from Stamford, Connecticut, just
outside New York City. Donna is on a line ten. Donna,
go ahead, Yes.
Speaker 18 (40:43):
Hi there. So I'm actually a career coach. So not
only am I working with people struggling to find work
from you know, people in their twenties, computer science majors, copywriters,
the twenty five years experience, but myself, you know, just
like therapists, I too could be replaced eventually with agent AI.
(41:06):
I've been to workshops where we're being trained to create
you know, AI agents.
Speaker 19 (41:12):
To replace us.
Speaker 14 (41:13):
So you know we're.
Speaker 18 (41:15):
Learning that that as well, but I'm experiencing it firsthand.
With many clients of all agents, Well, what do.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
You say to them?
Speaker 18 (41:26):
Well, that's the that's the big question. I mean, there
are still a lot of things people can do that
require those skills that you were talking about earlier that
aren't you know, computerized. I mean today one of my
clients is trying to get back into the workforce, and
(41:50):
you know, I asked her what are passions of what
she enjoys doing and she came up, you know, with
the whole list of them, and she has you know,
as we kind of talk through it, there are options
for her to become an improv trainer or you know,
help them work with young people doing recreational activities, and
(42:13):
those are activities that can't be replaced you know, via rost.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
At least not yet. At least not yet, Donna and
Andrew Yang. The one thing I will say is improv
well fun and very important, doesn't usually make you a
lot of money.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (42:30):
One of the things that I'd advise really is trying
to reduce your personal spending and your burn rate unfortunately.
I mean, you want to try and maintain some flexibility
and ability to invest or make transitions or maybe even
try and start something.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
If that's realistic.
Speaker 7 (42:46):
Because it's going to get really rough out there, and
the more adaptable and proactive you are, the better the world.
Where you could apply it for a job and expect
the job and then be there for years and years
and then maybe eventually retire. I mean, those days are
unfortunately disappearing.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Nevy is calling in from Chicago. Nevy, go ahead. Are
you worried about AI taking your job?
Speaker 15 (43:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 20 (43:10):
I am. I also work as a therapist. I do
think there will be always be people who will prefer
and speak out human therapists, So I don't think it's
going to go away entirely. But I'm more concerned about
the harm that could be done as people using AI
as being therapist. AI will always have the bias of
(43:32):
whoever trains it, And in the therapy world we talk
about cultural competence and how important that is, and I
imagine that these AI that therapy the charity labs, whereas
therapy chat lots will have lots of biases and will
not be able to accurately help people. For example, I
(43:55):
work with a lot of transgender clients. I'm concerned about
its being used in harmful ways, like as a conversion
therapy tool. Especially with the way this administration is moving
more broadly, AI will just constantly validate you. It will
just validate you over and over and like, tell me
(44:15):
you're doing nothing wrong. People need to be challenged, They
need confrontation. It is through confrontation and human relationships that
we grow and feel and that can't happen using AI.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
And I've also noticed, well, let me let me take that,
let bit devy, let me let me stop you there,
because we're running out of time. But you know, afraid
brings up an interesting point there about the data into
the AI. And also, by the way, I'm sure every
company is trying to figure out how to make sure
that they get you know, talked about first when you
ask chat GPT a question about where where can I
(44:50):
get a garden hose? You know, right now? And like
is should we be concerned about the data that's going
into the AI and how that's going to tell us
what to do and how that'll be used going forward.
Speaker 6 (45:02):
Absolutely, And we've been writing about the issues around training
data and the need for culturally broad training data, and
that's come under fire in this administration. I think the
more dangerous thing is we're going to have a fight
over how these chatbots answer things, and we are seeing that.
We're seeing that already both from the government with the
(45:24):
executive Order that basically wants its views of the world reinforced.
We're also seeing people who have active harm interest towards
communities like the trans community create their own AI. So
Elon Musk is explicitly trying to change the way the
algorithms answer from what even the grock itself came up
(45:47):
with from its training data. And he's finally created a
version that shares his hatred for trans people.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, I'm going to sneak in one more called real
Fast here Daniel in Detroit, Michigan. Daniel, go ahead with
your thoughts.
Speaker 19 (46:01):
Hey, I am a truck driver in coming out of
Detroit and a I've heard is they're trying to get
autonomous driving in the industry. And I've been in a
taka A friend of mine we took a trip from
Toledo to Clearfield, Pennsylvania, and I wanted to see if
(46:25):
he could actually do the entire trip without touching the
steering wheel. He was not able to. He actually had
to do so several times. And I do think it
will come into the industry, but I think for twenty
thirty years down the road.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
You don't think it's there. We're there yet. Well, and
I appreciate you calling while you're at work in the truck.
Of course, some people have been in Waimo's where that
you can sit there without touching the steering wheel for
a while. Andrew Young, I just want to wrap up
with you in a final thought on this. We just
had this election this week, and I have to say
I didn't hear much in any of the campaigns about
(47:04):
AI and jobs and if it is going to be
as disruptive as what we've been hearing this hour in
all kinds of fields, why aren't people talking about it?
Why aren't our leaders talking about it? Or what should
they be saying about what needs to be done right now?
Speaker 7 (47:18):
The only genuine solution would be to broadly distribute the
gains and value from AI to the American people via
something like a universal basic income or freedom dividend. And
because no political figure wants to actually rease a problem
that they're not going to suggest a solution to people,
shove it off to the sideline because they'd rather do
(47:39):
the entire polarized tribal warfare, tit for tat. It's a
weakness of the two party system that you don't need
to solve the underlying problem. You just need to be
a little bit less unpopular than the other guy.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
That is a Forward Party founder and a Noble Mobile
founder and CEO Andrew Yang. We've also been speaking with
Axe as Chief Technology correspondent, Ena Freed. Thanks so much
to both of you for joining us.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
Thank you check out Noble Mobile. I want to save
you all some money.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
I'm going to charge you. I'm going to charge you
for this ad Andrew Yang Tolliver. I will say that
was one of my favorite shows that we have ever done.
By the way, we are going to continue this conversation
in a couple weeks, not just about jobs, but talking
about whether you're excited or scared by AI and whether
you think it will actually take over and destroy us.
But next week we're going to be right back here
with the BBC's chief International correspondent. At least you said,
(48:30):
taking your questions about world news from the Middle East
to Ukraine to Venezuela to tariffs.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
Get your questions ready and subscribe to the middle wherever
you get your podcasts so you don't miss a single episode.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
Well thanks to our friends here at kate Era in
Dallas for hosting us this week, Jackson Wisdorf and Jeff Penfield.
The Middle is brought to you by Long Noook Media,
distributed by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced
by Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, Sam Burmistas, John barth Ona Kadeshler,
and Brandon Condritz. Our technical director is Steve Mork. Thanks
to our satellite radio listeners, our podcast audience, and the
(49:03):
hundreds of public radio stations making it possible for people
across the country to listen to the Middle, I'm Jeremy
Hobson and I will talk to you next week.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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