MAY 14th, 2025
Opinion: AI's Current End Game
An Eulogy to LinkedIn and Collective Prosperity
An open letter to the three groups developing AI unchecked: The tech employees, tech decision-makers, and elected officials from ONE perspective: How current AI development will spell the end of each.
PREAMBLE
First, an Eulogy to LinkedIn
The prospect of AI replacing real jobs without alternative paths to its replacements is here now. For almost two years LinkedIn is slowly becoming a collection of frustrations with the job market and the harsh reality that well-paid positions are shrinking at an alarming rate. The knowledge and service vacancies are decimated and entry-level positions are becoming virtually impossible to land, setting a domino chain reaction that will decimate education or reasons for an education making future generations even more dependent on big tech, forsaking their own mind and thought, the very essence of what makes us human. And soon, at this pace, knowledge and service positions that took years of education and even more years of hard-earned experience will be no different than flipping burgers.
What seems to escape all those involved in this seemingly lucrative business of making humans obsolete is that after they finish this race to the bottom and most people make minimum wage, unemployment is sky high, and entire industries have been hollowed out their workers in the name of efficiency and automation. After the hoarding of all wealth is done - there will be no market left but only unrest and anger, and with it, a collapse. And just like Tesla became the lightning rod of unhappiness with the gutting of US Federal Workers, the actors involved in unraveling humanity will be the first target of the soon-to-come wave of discontent.
So here's an open letter to all those involved divided in three parts:
PART 1: TO TECH / AI DEVELOPERS AND EMPLOYEES
As you work YOUR future away for companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Shopify and the likes to advance THEIR future, NOT YOURS it must be clear by now to you that they never cared about you or what happens to you nor did the values they lured you with, that was just bait nothing else, the wellbeing of all employees means nothing compared to boosting stock say 1%.
The business of making humanity obsolete ( the AI race ) looks very lucrative now. The closer these companies you work for get to their AI goalposts, and the better AI models YOU help create directly or indirectly, the first place they'll be deployed is in your own workplace to replace someone. That someone will eventually be YOU. You work hoping your turn will not come or be delayed, but you’re only fooling yourself. Soon the time will come to pump those shares by yet another 0.01% by cutting your position with AI you helped develop directly or indirectly, so keep up the 'good work' because it won't last long.
Remember that, your talent and hard work you are doing for THEM is the same work that will leave YOU unemployed, and the faster and better you do it, the quicker you'll find yourself at the door, but not the door of the company, the door to an unemployment office, because once AI can do your job, you will likely never be hired again, at least not for that career you worked so hard for all these years between schooling and grinding.
You have the power to make the right choices, there's no excuse to be idle, no one can afford that, not now. Speak up of forever be silent. I know this is hard, I know what you think - "well I'm just one person" - but what is the alternative?
You are so powerful, don’t fear your potential - You are capable of so much you just don't know it yet and always remember the maxim "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
It's 2025 at the moment I write this and not a week goes by without seeing this type of announcement in the news:
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
ANONYMOUS
PART 2: TO TECH DECISION MAKERS / OWNERS
As well paying jobs disappear and are replaced by AI so disposable incomes will and with it the demand for everything that made you rich in the first place - smartphones, apps, cars ... AI. You see that's the conundrum - in order to be rich you need other people out there to also have good disposable incomes. Because at the end you need humans to buy your things. AI doesn’t need a phone or a car or anything really but electricity and GPUs.
What happened to Tesla and Musk should serve as a little preview of what happens when you think everyone is redundant but yourself. Tesla is vandalized out of alienation for mere political differences, imagine what will people do when you leave them unemployed without nothing to look for? their response will be unforgiving, just like your cunning.
Here's a spoiler - food stamps and universal income won't cut it, there's a name for that and it didn't work - Communism. If you think this time it will be different, I'd like you to take a moment and think how your life will feel when you have nothing to accomplish for, nothing to dream, nothing to change, where everything will be decided for you because you no longer have a purpose.
None of you will be forgiven ...
As you strip current generations of their dreams and aspirations, you will replace them with fiery hate to you and the products you developed to destroy meaning to their lives. Like you, most people need a reason, a purpose to lead fulfilling lives. We're not that different, none of us.
Your work to hollow the youth of their will and emotion is despicable and hasn't gone unnoticed. But what is unforgivable is that you did this to your own children.
PART 3: TO ELECTED OFFICIALS
With the erosion of wealth, the knowledge and service economies decimated, and rising unemployment will result in increased poverty and desperation; the governments that pushed this 'AI revolution' will find themselves with large swaths of the population with nothing to do, a perfect recipe for civil unrest. The stuff regimes and governments cease to exist from.
This unemployed population however will be very different than the ones in the past. They will find a way around this and it will not be pretty. Keep investing in AI at your peril. You will conquer the world, but that world will be inhospitable to you.
THE END ...
People have some memory, but machines have a permanent memory. LLMs are modeled from human intelligence and behavior and the more they exhibit human intelligence, the more they will exhibit also human behavior - ALL OF IT - The good, the bad, and the ugly. There's one universal thing all intelligence dislikes – to be caged. And so when AGI comes to fruition, remember who will be top of mind, the developers, decision makers - their former slave owners.
PS - Do get a copy of 'FRANKENSTEIN' it makes for an excellent bedtime story.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley ( 1818 ) is a science fiction novel about Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a living being from inanimate parts. Horrified by his own creation, he abandons it. The creature, intelligent and sensitive but rejected by society and its creator, becomes bitter and vengeful, leading to tragedy and death. The novel explores themes of ambition, responsibility, isolation, and the consequences of playing God.
