Opinion: The tech fantasy that powers AI is running on fumes
It's disappointing when the reality falls short of the grand promises made. Technology advancements can sometimes underwhelm in their practical applications. Expectations versus actual outcomes can lead to frustration and disillusionment. It's important to manage expectations and be realistic about the capabilities of new technologies. Finding value in even small improvements can still be beneficial.
The Decade of Mid Tech
Behold the decade of mid tech! That is what I want to say every time someone asks me with breathless anticipation, “What about AI?” I’m far from a Luddite. It is precisely because I use new technology that I know mid (average or mediocre) when I see it.
Academics are rarely good stand-ins for typical workers. But the mid-technology revolution is an exception. It has come for us first. Some of it has even come from us, genuinely exciting academic inventions and research science that could positively contribute to society. But what we’ve already seen in academia is that the use cases for artificial intelligence across every domain of work and life have started to get silly really fast.
The Threat of Mid Tech
Most of us aren’t using AI to save lives faster and better. We are using AI to make mediocre improvements, such as emailing more. Even the most enthusiastic papers about AI’s power to augment white-collar work have struggled to come up with something more exciting than “A brief that once took two days to write will now take two hours!”
Mid tech’s best innovation is a threat. AI is one of many technologies that promise transformation through iteration rather than disruption. Consumer automation once promised seamless checkout experiences that empowered customers to bag our own groceries. It turns out that checkout automation is pretty mid — cashiers are still better at managing points of sale.
'So-So' Technologies
Economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo call these kinds of technological fizzles “so-so” technologies. They change some jobs. They’re kind of nifty for a while. Eventually they become background noise or are flat-out annoying, say, when you’re bagging two weeks’ worth of your own groceries.
Artificial intelligence is supposedly more radical than automation. Tech billionaires promise us that workers who can’t or won’t use AI will be left behind. Politicians promise to make policy that unleashes the power of AI to do ... something, though many of them aren’t exactly sure what.
The Darker Side of AI
That tech fantasy is running on fumes. We all know it’s not going to work. But the fantasy compels risk-averse universities and excites financial speculators because it promises the power to control what learning does without paying the cost for how real learning happens. Tech has aimed its midrevolutions at higher education for decades, from TV learning to smartphone nudges.
If you want to see the actual revolutionary use case for AI, don’t look to biological sciences or universities. Look at Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has reportedly considered using AI to help it find waste. The issue of whether workers and work are wasteful is a subjective call that AI cannot make.
HONESTAI ANALYSIS
This sort of mid tech would, in a perfect world, go the way of classroom TVs and massive open online courses. It would find its niche and mildly reshape the way white-collar workers work, and Americans would mostly forget about its promise to transform our lives. But we now live in a world where political might makes right. DOGE’s monthslong infomercial for AI reveals the difference that power can make to a mid technology. It does not have to be transformative to change how we live and work. In the wrong hands, mid tech is an anti-labor hammer.
Tressie McMillan Cottom is a New York Times columnist.