Take this job and shove it — at a robot

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a recent drastic advancement of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. On Sundays, we look at the major themes of th [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a recent drastic advancement of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. On Sundays, we look at the major themes of the week past and how they will define the week ahead. Sign up for the daily newsletter [here](. [Tiny Little Robots]( So, is AI going take over your job just one day a week, or full time? In other words, are you headed to a workplace wonderland or a [death of despair](? Here is some hype for the former: “If we want to be competitive in the future with AI,” Dale Whelehan [tells]( the Wall Street Journal, “we need an engaged, not a burned-out workforce.” The catch, and you knew there would be one, is that Dale is CEO of [4 Day Week Global](, which will happily teach your firm’s employees how to cram five days of work into four, for a price of course. On the other side is Goldman Sachs, which has [predicted]( that two-thirds of occupations could be all or partially automated by AI. The hedge of  “partially” may give you hope, but again, there’s a [catch](: Does anybody honestly think a firm that only told workers to begin taking Saturdays off in 2021 is going to be looking for Dale Whelehan’s services? There is a third possibility that, according to a guy who co-edited a book called [Robot Sex](, combines the best of both those worlds: a life of utopian [idleness]( where, “free from need or want, we can spend our time inventing and playing games and exploring virtual realities that are more deeply engaging and absorbing than any we have experienced before, allowing us to achieve idealized forms of human flourishing.” Man, that sounds dull. I’d probably deeply engage and absorb myself back into a newsletter of despair. On the plus side, we are repeatedly told that no matter how smart our smart machines get, they will never replace the most imaginative among us. A McKinsey [study]( predicts that generative AI will end up “enhancing” the way creative professionals work “rather than eliminating a significant number of jobs outright.” Two catches: A) [it’s]( [a]( [McKinsey]( [study](!! and B) this ad: Source: Threads “Surely someone in that Cupertino spaceship in California could comprehend the grim imagery of its [new iPad ad]( — titled simply ‘Crush!’— in which a giant crushing machine slowly squeezes a pile of beloved creative tools,” Dave Lee [writes](. Yep, an odd sell for a company that made a fetish of design, whose products are de rigueur among creative professionals, and that made the epic [“1984”]( ad showing man (or at least Mac) triumphing over machine. “It is Apple’s worst marketing faux pas since it forced everyone to listen to U2,” says Dave. “It speaks to our broad fears that recent drastic advancements in technology are a grave risk to the joy, authenticity and spontaneity of human creativity.” (Note to self: Do not give [this]( to Dave for Christmas.) Who else is on AI’s chopping block? Quants? Telemarketers? Uber drivers? Matthew Brooker seems to be nominating … British waiters?!  “In Britain, where the obsequious butler or maid is a staple of the world’s imagination, customer service is forever getting worse,” [writes]( Matthew, who moved back to the UK a couple years ago after three decades in East Asia. “There is a strain of British society that doesn’t accept the concept of service. The Anglo-French chef Michel Roux once [attributed]( it to the legacy of Britain’s class system, in which being ‘in service’ meant being a full-time resident minion of the aristocracy. Freed from servitude by the collapse of this system, we British have been rebelling against any hint of subservience ever since.” As [the]( [Brits]( [play]( at Fawlty Towers, the French — a race that has made a métier of impolitesse — are aiming to please, pushing a pre-Olympics hospitality campaign titled [“Do you speak touriste?’’]( Je n'y crois pas! Gen Zers are understandably the most worried about job obsolescence, but sometimes I wish they all [worked for Qu Jing](. “If you grew up watching shows such as Friends, you might expect your 20s to be the best time of your life,” [writes]( my fellow Gen Xer Allison Schrager. “It is also a challenging time — and always has been. It’s not easy to establish a career. You don’t have any skills yet — except if you’re on the [social media team](, which wields a scary amount of power in every organization — so you are expendable, and must work many hours doing thankless tasks.” Then Allison sticks in the knife: “Young people complain about this state of affairs not only because it is genuinely unpleasant but because they have an exaggerated sense of their own worth.” If I sound bitter, bear in mind I entered the workforce in 1989: While it looks like our jobs may be safe for the time being, the workplace clearly needs reform. Paul J. Davies has the man for the job: Stafford Beer, who in the 1970s was “the leading light of a movement known as management cybernetics, a math-heavy approach to studying self-regulation, feedback and decision-making systems.” The catch this time: Beer has been dead for more than two decades. Fortunately, his mantle has been picked up by Dan Davies[1](#footnote-1), author of The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions — and How the World Lost Its Mind. “Davies has an optimistic aside,” Paul [explains](, “that AI’s ability to capture and compress vast amounts of information into something humans can digest could make it an incredibly powerful tool of communication to keep industries and nations functioning and viable.” Let’s just hope we office drones can stay functioning and viable as well. Bonus [At My Job]( Reading: - The FDIC’s Culture [Is a Toxic Relic]( That Shouldn't Exist — Paul J. Davies - The [Gravy Train Is Ending]( for NCAA Football Coaches — Adam Minter - Stop [Protecting]( New-Car Dealers — The Editors [What’s the World Got in Store](? - UK jobless claims, May 14: Woe Is Rishi Sunak, Leader of a [Broken Tory Party]( — Matthew Brooker - Putin visits China, May 15: America [Just Doesn’t Get]( China’s People vs. the CCPs — Karishma Vaswani - US housing starts, May 16: We Actually [Need to Build]( More Luxury Homes. Here’s Why.— Conor Sen [Sounds of Science]( One person ensuring that AI creates some jobs is the beardless but blinged-out Mark Zuckerberg. “Giving away LLaMA, the [system that is also powering]( Meta’s [new AI assistants](, already makes life more difficult for large rivals,” Parmy Olson [writes](. “It should also go some way toward attracting more top talent, an issue so important to Zuckerberg that he has personally emailed researchers at Google’s DeepMind with job offers.” Let’s hope they don’t jump ship. “Alphabet’s artificial intelligence subsidiary, Google DeepMind, has yet again knocked the socks off scientists with its latest iteration of AlphaFold, using the tool to illuminate the intricate dance between some of life’s most important molecules,” Lisa Jarvis [writes](. “It’s an important leap toward a world where technology enables a deeper understanding of human biology and, hopefully, improves our ability to discover new drugs.” “Even if computers can eventually come up with a good idea for a drug, that work must be recapitulated in the lab and then tested in humans,” Lisa explains. “AI has yet to obviate the need for safety studies or replace clinical trials, the trickiest phase of development for most drugs, when failures far outweigh successes.” The good news: Actual humans will have a vital role in AI-enhanced scientific workplace. The catch: It’s as guinea pigs! Notes: Please send an iPad Pro and feedback to Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net. [1] No relation to Paul. Nor to the Dan Davies who wrote and starred in [Ed Gein, the Musical](, a lighthearted romp through the life and career of my home state's most prolific (and cannibalistic) grave-robbing serial killer. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. 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