Joe Allen, a right-wing commentator, warns of a new threat posed by Silicon Valley: ‘algorithmic immigrants.’ These digital workers, operating tirelessly from server farms, pose a risk to millions of jobs in the U.S. Unlike human employees, they require no health insurance, never take sick days, and don’t request raises.
The debate on whether software qualifies as an ‘immigrant’ sidesteps a crucial issue. A mid-level worker averages about 2,000 working hours annually, while software on a cloud can run 8,760 hours a year uninterrupted. The real impact occurs before layoffs happen. The mere threat of automation undermines a worker’s bargaining power.
Consider a senior analyst asking for a raise. An executive might see software covering 70% of the analyst’s tasks. That raise request turns into a suggestion to be grateful for retaining employment.
Generations X and millennials followed a familiar life script. Attend college, accumulate debt, and secure a position in an office. The education system prepared them for roles needing human minds to handle reports, contracts, software development, and data analysis. Now, machines execute these tasks faster and cheaper. As technology evolved, workers continue repaying loans for degrees tailored to obsolete roles.
Politicians and tech leaders advocate for retraining. Yet, expecting a 45-year-old paralegal to learn coding becomes impractical when software begins writing code autonomously. Perpetually outrunning automated systems can lead to both mental and financial strain. Life commitments like families and mortgage payments persist while retraining takes years.
A company need not dismiss all its employees to cause economic harm. Reducing a department’s workforce by 40% leads to a surplus of specialists competing for fewer jobs, suppressing wage growth. Despite the reduction, company output and profits may still increase, benefiting enterprises while making it difficult for many Americans to sustain their standard of living.
The middle class, heavily reliant on information management roles, feels a significant impact. While losing an entry-level service job is challenging for a young person, losing a $100,000 salary can devastate families. Transitioning middle-class office workers into physical trades is impractical. Training to become a licensed electrician takes years, and the influx of new workers could depress wages for experienced tradespeople.
Corporations often use phrases like ‘human in the loop,’ signaling that employees supervise software replacing entire teams. The actual work output remains the same, but staff numbers plummet, with companies claiming no replacements as humans still make final decisions.
Adding insult to injury, companies often ask senior staff to document their workflows, inadvertently training the software that will eliminate their jobs. Employees invest months transferring knowledge to systems designed to replace them, all in anticipation of bonuses unlikely to come.
The broader outlook offers little solace, with some computer scientists estimating a 10% chance of AI leading to human extinction. Society faces either a gradual financial decline or an abrupt end from superintelligent systems. Critics might dismiss such warnings, but few remain optimistic about the trajectory society is on.
John Mac Ghlionn, a writer and researcher, examines culture, society, and technological impacts on daily life.
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