AI’s employment consequences are unpredictable because they depend on capitalist competition

Evidence

Within real competition, technology plays a vital role in the increase in profits. The latest innovations in artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, accelerate technological unemployment, threatening to render even the most specialized workers redundant, like analysts, engineers, and professors. So far, that has not yet happened, but jobs will be lost in any case. It’s challenging to anticipate the social impact of these new technologies, and speculation is abundant. However, our critical lens provides at least one important insight. The consequences of AI are hard to predict not only because of the complexity of AI algorithms but because of the specific dynamics of our economy. Again, in our society, there is no economic plan formulated through collective decisions—whether democratic or authoritarian—but rather a myopic profusion of outcomes stemming from the individual decisions of large capital holders competing for survival and profit. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 248

Categorization

• DEFINE: Displaces the naive frame that AI job loss is a purely technical forecasting problem with a structural one.
• XREF: connects to: Competition among capitalists structurally demands constant technological change — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 21; AI unemployment is unpredictable because capitalism lacks any collective economic planning. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 248; Unemployment structurally disciplines workers and lowers labor costs in capitalism — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 150 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Competition among capitalists structurally demands constant technological change #expands (0.85) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 21
• AI unemployment is unpredictable because capitalism lacks any collective economic planning. #qualifies (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 248
• Unemployment structurally disciplines workers and lowers labor costs in capitalism #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 150