A study in denial

There’s an interesting phenomenon I keep encountering, most recently this weekend.

I talk to people who’ve gone all-in on generative AI and bought into the inevitability story. They use AI to write, code, design, “think”, babysit their children, whatever…

And when the conversation unavoidably leads to the topic of large language models replacing jobs, they all tell me in their own way that, yes, it’s true, generative AI will be taking all the jobs; but not theirs. No Sir, their job is too complex to be taken over by the token machine.

It reminds me of the people who think car accidents only happen to others. There’s even a name for this: the invulnerability bias.

Now, I don’t believe generative AI is even remotely capable of replacing most jobs. It can enhance some of them – with proper guardrails (which, honestly, I’ve yet to see). But the billionaires selling AI? Or the “thought leaders” and managers who idolise these same billionaires, believing they belong to the same club? Those people are absolutely capable of selling the AI-takes-all-the-jobs concept to the rest of the corporate world. It doesn’t even need to work properly.

And, when that happens, the invulnerable will find out they were also everybody else.

Colin