Silicon Valley is finally coming for your job next year

In 2023, big tech got the AI hype train rolling. In 2024, it needs to turn it into a business

Hello to my friends and luddites, seasons greetings all.

SILICON VALLEY’S HOLIDAY WISH IS FOR A ROBOT JOBS APOCALYPSE

So, the year is drawing to a close, and I’ve been thinking, as one does, about software automation. More specifically, about OpenAI and the droves of AI startups that got to spend 2023 basking in a much-hyped “debate” about whether they were building something that would save humanity……… or destroy it.

It was all a little ridiculous, of course, and largely in the service of marketing a product as extremely powerful and thus uniquely desirable, and in my opinion a few too many members of the commentariat nodded along with furrowed brows obligingly. But now that story’s almost out of gas, and anyway, the boardroom coup at OpenAI that ended with the ouster of the AI safety folks and the instatement of Larry Summers, the humanoid avatar of profit-as-progress, has given up the game almost completely.

All this is to say, this year, tech companies got to cosplay as science fictional harbingers of a nigh unknowable future intelligence — next year, they’re going to have to move product, and that ultimately probably means pushing what is another software automation product to try to turn a buck.

That’s the column this week, which I hope you’ll scan:

Earlier this year, the Information reported that OpenAI’s server costs were estimated to be up to $1 million per day. And that’s on top of the company’s other overhead, of course, including labor and research and development costs. So generative AI companies are hemorrhaging money — not just OpenAI but Anthropic, Midjourney and tech giants like Google and Microsoft, too.

And now, the hype is cooling. In 2024, analysts, investors and business reporters will be wondering where the business is. It’s already not uncommon to hear observers remark that AI is a solution in search of a problem. In other words, there’s a real itchiness among backers and partners — who are reading headlines like the Journal’s and are beginning to wonder whether generative AI risks becoming another cash sink like the metaverse, NFTs or crypto before it — and among the companies desperate both to prove it isn’t and to strike before the hype iron goes cold altogether.

So, it’s time for Phase Two: to sell generative AI products to businesses with far deeper pockets than the average lay user, who is by now accustomed to using services such as Google search for free, and will be uninterested in paying a monthly fee to have ChatGPT tell them recipes. Besides, those sky-high user rates are already declining, suggesting that there is a ceiling on who might be willing to pay for a premium model to get faster and slightly improved results.

No, the generative AI companies will have to set their sights on enterprise customers, by making the pitch that AI is good for business. And how might AI be good for business? Well, it can automate tasks, it can cut labor costs, and it can generate efficiencies.

It can do people’s jobs.

As I point out in the piece, generative AI services most certainly cannot actually do most people’s jobs—but Silicon Valley is hoping all that science fictional doomsday scenario-ing will have given middle managers the world over the impression that it can.

Going to be really, really interesting to watch how this plays out next year — how OpenAI and the AI cohort try to hang onto and build the hype, and where they try to make deals.

SUBSTACK’S NAZI PROBLEM

There’s a good open letter going around calling on the management at Substack to clarify their position on platforming pro-Nazi and Nazi-affiliated writers; I support this fully and would have shared it myself if this were not like my third or so actual post here and would not have risked seemed like grandstanding or co-opting something folks had worked to organize.

I’ll add a couple thoughts—my partner is working on a research project on the ‘free speech social network’ Gab, and she noted months ago to me that it had surprised her just how many antisemitic and racist posters there had links to Substacks. This is a real problem, and more supporting evidence for Jonathan Katz’s Atlantic piece on the subject.

Another note is that the only reason that I’m posting here on Substack and not on Ghost is because I tried to start a Blood in the Machine newsletter there, and apparently I didn’t post quickly enough to become an active user because the Ghost admins locked it and said they couldn’t unlock it, and if it weren’t for my self-inflicted snafu, I’d be posting over there. Substack has a good built-in network, but I liked the Ghost web editor tools better, and Substack already had a bit of a stink on it from past controversies, and that stink seemed to me to be deserved. It’s disingenuous for Substack, as it is with any and all platforms, to pretend like it’s somehow a neutral party and just allowing “free speech” here and not making editorial decisions — this was especially true when it was offering advances to writers to support certain kinds of publications, but it’s also true now, about white supremacist content it hosts and sometimes monetizes. I’ll be curious to see how Substack responds, if it meaningfully responds at all.

GOOD MACHINE-BREAKING CONTENT

Telemarketers — I watched this three-part documentary series about the almost unfathomably shady telemarketing industry, and heartily recommend it, especially the first two episodes, which reveal in a sad and comic narrative how depraved this whole endeavor is, how it preys on vulnerable and precarious workers, how it leans on police unions for credibility, and how it led to the mass automating of a hellish operation. And if the words “documentary series” turn you off, I’ll just say don’t let them here; it’s illuminating and factual yes, but the central characters and environs are as wild and vivid as anything on a prestige TV show, if not more so.

I also worked with Sam Lipman-Stern, one of the creators of the show, on a few projects back at VICE and he was always a stand-up guy and I am happy to see his success here.

NUMBER GO UP — I finished Zeke Faux’s book, which dives into the last 2-3 sordid years of the crypto industry, and it’s a great read. Entirely compelling, sharp, and fast-paced, it’s a sterling primer to anyone who wants to understand the general nature of the crypto world in a couple sittings. I maybe wish it had delved deeper into the origins and backers of the industry, and the motivations of some of the key figures besides Sam Bankman-Fried, and it was mean, even for me, which I was not expecting, but it was also very funny, so. Best of all, I love how he ventures to Cambodia, El Salvador, and the Philippines to see exactly how ‘untraceable’ digital currencies impact the world beyond investor conferences in Silicon Valley and Miami.

THE YEAR TWITTER DIED — The Verge’s package on the end of Twitter is great; I especially enjoyed Sarah Jeong’s contribution; a look at how the platform enabled both dissidence and mass harassment, and how she experienced that harassment firsthand in a disturbing and enduring way.

LAST CALL FOR THE WORST TECH OF 2023

Drop them in the comments, or drop me a line if you’ve got one! Original column is here.

BLOOD IN THE YEAR-END SHOPPING LISTS

Finally, thanks to all the publications who’ve popped BLOOD IN THE MACHINE onto their lists of year-end holiday gift guides; a hearty salute from this general Ludd.

That’s it for this week — keep those hammers held high, and cheers all.

*I got the author of the Atlantic piece wrong in the original post; it’s not David, it’s Jonathan Katz.