Stephen Downes

Some truth from Julian Stodd: "Our desire to keep people at the centre of our organisations is noble, understandable, but ultimately not borne out by history or experience." We have always been happy to outsource labour - to machines, to overseas workers, to whatever. "Once labour becomes substitutable, the market will substitute it. Just ask anyone who owns a wheelbarrow." And few outside labour unions have complained; the people who opine and write and make decisions about such things have been insulated from the consequences and haven't really cared. Until now. Now it's the organization itself that can be replaced. Most service organizations exist because there is an information assymetry, writes Stodd. We pay for their services not because we want to but because we have to, and if AI redresses that assymetry, then we can and will stop paying them. Even if the people in question are the people who opine and write and make decisions.