Your Boss's Spyware Could Train AI to Replace You (Wired)

[highplainsdem]

https://www.wired.com/story/corporate-surveillance-train-ai/

Then there’s the issue of how it’s being incorporated into daily work and how it’s being trained. Enter corporate spyware, invasive monitoring apps that allow bosses to keep close tabs on everything their employees are doing—collecting reams of data that could come into play here in interesting ways. Corporations, which are monitoring their employees on a large scale, are now having workers utilize AI tools more frequently, and many questions remain regarding how the many AI tools that are currently being developed are being trained.

Put all of this together and there’s the potential that companies could use data they’ve harvested from workers—by monitoring them and having them interact with AI that can learn from them—to develop new AI programs that could actually replace them. If your boss can figure out exactly how you do your job, and an AI program is learning from the data you’re producing, then eventually your boss might be able to just have the program do the job instead.

-snip-

Whether you’re training an AI tool directly by interacting with it throughout the day, or the data you’re producing while you work is simply being used to create an AI program that can do the work you’re doing, there are multiple ways in which a worker could inadvertently end up training an AI program to replace them. Even if the program doesn’t end up being incredibly effective, a lot of companies might be happy with an AI program that’s good enough because it doesn’t require a salary and benefits.

-snip-

“It’s not that we’re going to run out of work. It’s much more that people are doing something they’re good at, and that thing goes away. And then they end up doing a kind of generic activity that everybody’s good at, which means it pays very little—food service, cleaning, security, vehicle driving,” Autor says. “These are low-paying activities.”

And that comment in the last paragraph assumes those occupations aren't also largely automated away.

This sort of thing is already happening. I ran across an article months ago on employers discovering new, lower-paid employees could be made nearly as productive as much more experienced, better employees if assisted by AI trained by the best employees.

I also posted about a CEO who said that in the future he'll probably just hire coders right out of high school, since AI will be helping them.

And of course this is parallel to professional writers' concerns about being replaced by AI trained on vast amounts of professional writing, much of it stolen.

[justaprogressive]

1. Actually I don't think they care about the quality of the work done

Only the bottom lime.

[2naSalit]

3. +1

[BootinUp]

2. This is one thing in my small company

I don't really worry about.

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Well, isn't that the whole goal of commercialized AI ?

The developers know who's writing the checks, and this is what the ruling class has always wanted. Products of workmanship without having to pay the workmen.

Slavery is illegal, so over the years they've created all kinds of "slavery by another name". Now they can create tireless mechanical slaves who propagate themselves, and capitalism can finally eat its own tail.

[Backseat Driver]

6. In my state, they don't even need AI to do that

Employers need no criteria - no documentation of "issues" at all to eliminate anyone at any time and courts would approve the sacking. Nothing personal; just business.

[Gore1FL]

7. Catch me on the right days

And I will totally train the AI to fuck around aimlessly.

[Hugin]

8. So, instead of treating employees with a little consideration...

Which is, quite frankly, the cheapest way. Even with substantial wage increases.

Corporations are prepared to dive into a sketchy new and unproven technology that is light years out of their ballpark and spend boatloads of money to develop what they already have?

It’s madness and leading me to believe that cruelty is the only point.