Palantir CEO Alex Karp thinks his AI technology will lessen the power of “highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat” while increasing the power of working-class men.
“This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters,” Karp said in a CNBC interview Thursday. “And so these disruptions are gonna disrupt every aspect of our society. And to make this work, we have to come to an agreement of what it is we’re going to do with the technology; how are we gonna explain to people who are likely gonna have less good, and less interesting jobs.”
While his point probably sounds logical to a person who only wants to hear things that confirm their feelings, I think it is missing an incredibly important point. Yes, AI will probably not be used to replace plumbers, car mechanics, carpenters, etc. And yes, AI will mostly be used to TRY to replace people in office jobs. But assuming his point is true that all those office people lose their jobs (ignoring the whole sexist part of female voters), then who is going to be able to pay wages to those plumbers and mechanics? Trades people in the US are making really good money right now, and that’s because office workers in the US are making really good money right now compared to the rest of the world.
It’s almost like a rising tide lifts all boats and that helping those around you is better than helping a billionaire who is siphoning up the tidal water to pay for data center cooling.
To add to that, many office workers that lose their career will then go get a plumbing license. There will be fewer paying clients AND more plumbers to choose from. Wages will absolutely go down for everyone if there are fewer careers available.