Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Welcome to Prompting Curiosity, a podcast for the AI curious. No coding background required. I'm your host, Dr. Shantae Cofield, also known as the Maestro, and I created this show to explore what these AI tools actually are. Really, though, are the files in the computer, how to use them, and what they might mean for how we think, work, create and move through life. Whether you're skeptical, intrigued, or already experimenting, you're in the right place. All that I ask is that you stay curious. All right, let's get into it.
[00:00:38] Hello, hello, hello, my curious people, and welcome to episode 43 of Prompting Curiosity. I am your grateful host, the Maestro, and today we're talking about AI and the job market, namely that it's not coming for your job, y'. All. I spend a lot of time on social media, arguably. And by arguably, I mean definitely too much time. Um, but I'm not changing. But either way, basically every single piece of content made these days is optimized for clicks, right? Which means it's dramatic, it's polarizing, it's got no nuance, and the goal is to make you either angry or scared because that is what keeps you in the platform. So, yes, a large part of the reason that I wanted to record this episode is because I'm just so fucking sick of the fear mongering and the dramatizations and the dystopian predictions. Right? Since pretty much minute number one, the Ed, the headlines surrounding AI have focused on AI. As you know, it's going to take people's jobs. Now, don't get me wrong, don't get me wrong here. I think so many white collar jobs out there are absolute bullshit and I would love to see them go away and to have that money put towards things that are actually going to help society.
[00:01:50] But AI ain't taking these jobs. And honestly, I don't think it's going to take any many jobs. Right.
[00:01:59] Uh, just to be, you know, to be. To be frank with that, Yes. I actually want to add on to that. I don't think it's going to end up taking and keeping many people's jobs. I just sit for a moment to think how I want to articulate that. I don't think it's going to take them and keep them. Yes, people are absolutely being laid off right now because these dumb CEOs believe they can decrease expenses, aka they're going to cut salaries and increase profits and increase shareholder value by firing humans and deploying AI. Any of you listening to this who have actually used AI, you know how well this is going to go right and we're already seeing companies backtrack on this and rehire people. Klarna, one of the best examples, they laid off 1800 people when they replaced their customer service staff with AI chatbots. How did that go? Well, the CEO had to admit, he came out and admitted that it led to reduced service quality and customer satisfaction. What did they do? Right, decreased customer satisfaction and what do they do? They have since rehired human customer service staff. Right.
[00:03:01] In the IT job market, which, you know, I bring this up because that this is a place where tech can, can arguably, um, you know, definitely have an impact in the IT job market. One report showed that the companies of the company surveyed that did lay off, did, that did do layoffs, uh, secondary to AI optimization.
[00:03:21] 50% of them, 55,0 are expected to rehire for the same roles and profiles by 2027.
[00:03:29] Right? Customer service was. Back it up. Customer service is a role, uh, that was very heavily and you know, very early on outsourced AI. And I actually chose to focus on that as the initial example. Not only because it was, you know, outsourced and um, it's often brought up, but because it very clearly supports the bigger point that I'm trying to make, which is that AI isn't coming for your job. Mainly because most jobs that these whack ass companies are looking to outsource to AI aren't merely tasks, right? In many cases where a human is involved, the task is not the entire job.
[00:04:06] Using customer service as the example is a great example because people don't, these companies don't value it, but it is a hugely human centric job.
[00:04:17] Right? As it relates to customer service, the task of identifying the issue and remedying it is only part of the job. It is a task. Another part of the job is that very human component which entails expressing remorse, demonstrating understanding, apologizing, sympathizing, doing something about the caller's emotions, taking a personal interest in the situation and in some cases going the extra mile to solve the problem or solve a problem, especially when it's out of the ordinary. This is absolutely not a job that I want. But those are things that are part of the job and they simply cannot be outsourced to AI.
[00:04:55] Right? They can't. There's a, there's a great moment in uh, the movie with Will, with Will Smith. I am robot. I am robot. Wow, that's I am legend. But what I'm talking about is iRobot and uh, spoiler alert. So if you haven't seen iRobot. I don't know, fast forward like 30 seconds in this. But in iRobot, one of the issues is that he was saved by this robot and he was saved over this young girl. The car fell into the water, the robot did calculations and it saved him instead of the girl because it said that he had like a, you know, 57% chance of surviving and the girl had a 29 or whatever, 19% chance of surviving.
[00:05:38] And Will Smith's like a really poignant, poignant line in this thing that he carries with him the whole, you know, the whole movie is that he said, a human would have known to save the girl. A human would have known. And the robot just does the math. It's missing that component. And that's what we're talking about here. Maybe you guys, maybe you listening to this are like, that is dramatic. But it's the truth. That is the truth, right? When it comes to something like customer service, the actual task is just part of the job.
[00:06:08] And no, I do not want that customer service job because you have to fucking deal with these people emotions, right? But those things are absolutely part of the job and those people should get paid more and they simply cannot be outsourced to AI, right? So of course Klarna saw reduced service quality and decreased customer satisfaction because only part of the job was being performed by the robot, right? So when folks say, you know, AI can do X, they are talking about a task. We must remember that a job is not just a single task.
[00:06:37] And if it is just a single task, well then yes, maybe there is a good chance that it can get outsourced to AI.
[00:06:42] The real question here is what is the actual product thing being produced and what therefore, what is the actual job, right? For a lot of work, especially what I'm guessing that you listening to this do you know, especially if you're in the service industry, the product itself is deeply intertwined with human interaction. Examples of this, therapy, coaching, personal training, teaching, barbers. I love my barber restaurants, right? With these examples, we see that the human in the human isn't just the delivery mechanism. The human interaction is absolutely part of what the customer is paying for, right?
[00:07:21] To that end, AI cannot replace desired human presence. Worth noting, there is that word desired.
[00:07:30] When we want human, want a human, and we perceive them to be an integral part of the experience, AKA an integral part of the product or the service, we will not accept AI. We will not accept a robot when we don't desire a human to be part of the experience. Because we don't, you know, consider that human to be integral. Robots can replace them. Perfect example. Natm, right? Simple transactions, just depositing or withdrawing money. We don't, you know, need a line. We don't want a line. And we don't really need a human, nor do we really need a pleasant greeting. It's nice to have. You don't need to have them.
[00:08:07] So we saw them, you know, ATMs did just fine and we still have bank tellers.
[00:08:13] A more polarizing example, but one that we are currently witnessing in real time. Waymo, right?
[00:08:20] Folks are willing to pay more for a driverless experience, right? And this is only furthered by the perceived increases in safety that is expressed by female writers and anyone else who's more likely to be victims of violent crimes committed by men, AKA the drivers. Right?
[00:08:39] This is a very real thing. We don't want humans as part of the experience because it doesn't feel safe.
[00:08:45] So yeah, we are more than willing to outsource that to a robot. I know I say polarizing. I know some people are absolutely not. I actually feel less safe and I'm like, I actually feel more safe.
[00:08:55] I fully am super excited for Waymo to come to where I live. They are currently been canvassing for a bit. They have to like train the cars and stuff.
[00:09:05] Um, but from all senses of safety. Not just like physical safety from the. Because of the driver not being there, but like drivers are not paying attention. I absolutely had an incident where I was not even going far and I am 99 certain that the driver was falling asleep. I talked to the drivers always anyway, but I was like, so tell me about your day. When did it start? Because when I wasn't talking to him, he was definitely nodding off. And I was like, uh, I don't want this.
[00:09:38] People get distracted. It's a very real thing. I am here for the robots. I think that it would be if everyone, if everything was robots, would be, you know, a safer experience in that regard. So, yes, I do not think that humans need to be part of this process and I'd rather outsource that to the robot. Um, uh, another example that we've seen self checkout at the grocery store.
[00:10:03] Now a bit of a tangent here, but I do think that self checkouts give us insight into what will likely happen in the future, which is that we'll see a hybridization of many things and customers and consumers will have a choice between do they want the human interaction or not. I mean, we see that with the bank as well, obviously. Um, that's another example. But it's like so telling, uh, to see it at the. And so obvious is really probably a better word to see it at the grocery store because they're like right next to each other. You have to go in no matter what. You have to go in to the grocery store. You don't necessarily have to go inside of the bank if the ATMs on the outside, right? But the grocery store, you got to go inside. And then you see there's a self checkout and there are, there is the, uh, uh, you know, the, the. I don't even. It's called. I don't even know what it's called at this point. The, the lanes that are worked by the humans, right? You have both options and people feel very strongly one way or the other. I am all about self checkout. Like, I have no problem going to the to. I just don't like waiting in line. It's not even the interaction with the person.
[00:11:05] It's that I don't want to wait in line. And so I'm like, this is much faster for me to just go and, and do the checkout myself, right? And I don't, I don't care. I'm not like, oh, I should pay less. Like, I don't fucking care. I just, it. I don't m. I like saving the time. Um, but I do think that that's what we're going to see moving forward, right? Where we'll see a hybridization. You'll have both options and you get to choose. And I think this will be a thing for, you know, even domains like music and art, right? People will always want to go hear live music performed by humans. It's such a incredible, like, breathtaking, just, you know, deeply moving experience.
[00:11:40] But I also think that people will be far more open to streaming AI generated music. We are already see, seeing it. We are already seeing it at scale, right? We're there. You know, there was most recently the one that went around and it was uh, a whole ass performance of this person's tweets. Not, uh, tweets, texts to her friend. Whether it was a story was made up or not doesn't matter, but it was a whole story of this woman was at this man's house and she texting her friend. She's like, I know, jumping m out. You told m. Me not to come here, but I came here and I just saw his phone and his girlfriend, his wife, whatever, is on the way home. And now I'm stuck in the closet and like it's this whole back and forth. But one of the presentations of this is a, like a, like a gospel choir. Like this is not a real choir that's doing it right. It is AI generated and this thing is viral as my uh, people are enjoying it. So I do think that we will, we will see the both end of that where. And there's gonna be pushback of course. Of course.
[00:12:40] But we're gonna see both. I, I very strongly believe that. So moving, continuing on with just the, the episode here is that something that's worth sitting with at this point is are we just contributing to self isolation and ultimately the destruction of community? Right. As we start to think about, you know, we take the driver out of the car, which there it is a safe, safer thing.
[00:13:09] You know, just uh, men are. You have.
[00:13:13] It's safer, right?
[00:13:16] We, but when we talk about it from when people's number one reason for not for wanting to remove the human is they're like, I don't want to interact with people, then we got it does warrant taking a moment and being like, but why? And if it's like when it comes to being in someone's car, you're like, yes, this makes sense.
[00:13:35] But when it comes to the grocery store, something like that, and you're like, oh, you just like don't want to interact with people and you're like, maybe that's not actually a good thing. Like I have no problem. I don't. Again, I go to self checkout because it's just faster. But if I'm in the checkout line mass Lex, I'd be talking to everybody all the time.
[00:13:55] But I think it is worth sitting with is at what point are we just contributing to self isolation and destruction of community?
[00:14:02] You know, one of the reasons I started this podcast was to have a space and create a space to articulate these things as I'd be thinking about them and to start this conversation because there's so much more to AI than just talking about the technology itself. Right. There are many things to be considered when deciding whether or not a human is an integral part of the experience.
[00:14:20] I do think we inherently know and I think we can feel it. But what we're willing to accept and what we enjoy can definitely be shaped by what we're continuously exposed to.
[00:14:34] So I think these discussions are very warranted. Right. Because I think the, the grocery store is a perfect example. If there's just like no tellers. No. And what do they call that? Even don't even no checkout people there at some point, like, do we just get used to that? Like, there is a transitional period where it's like, this is annoying and people don't like it, but like, at some point is it just how things are? And we've accepted it because that's what we've. That's all we have. That's the only option we have.
[00:15:08] And I don't want that to be the case. I love a mom and pop shop. I love, you know, that was one of the coolest parts about living in New York and, and having the bodega. And like, you have these relationships with these people.
[00:15:20] And so we do things in the name of efficiency. And it's like, how fucking efficient do we need to be?
[00:15:26] So, yeah, you know, I, uh, uh, I'm to blame with this as well, because the reason I like going to the self checkout is because it's efficient.
[00:15:35] All right? But it's like, how efficient does it need to be? And if it's like at the, the cost of that is community, I'm like, no, I will go slower. I go to the farmer's market now as well. And I'm like, I love it.
[00:15:46] All right? But it's. I think the most important thing is just thinking about it. Not the most important. An important thing is just thinking about it. Healthy thing is just thinking about it, you know, and, and talking about. Because the, the only variable that these companies are looking at, as you know, these AI, these companies that are implementing AI, these companies that are looking to remove the human. The only thing that these companies are looking at is money. All right? Nothing else, which I do, funnily enough, or maybe not funny, but I do ultimately, I do think may ultimately drive these companies to rehire humans. I think it will be money, right? As you know, unfortunately, it will always be cheaper to simply underpay a human to perform a task. Global capitalism both requires and creates exploited, cheap labor, right? We see in the Global south, the cost of AI is rapidly rising. As you know, VC funding is depleting and these people want a return on their investment. And companies are starting to see the real numbers and do real math. And there are new questions circulating as to whether or not it is in fact cheaper to use AI.
[00:16:56] We have already seen this happen, folks. This happened three years, four years ago at this point. I don't know if you guys remember, you folks remember Amazon's just walk out technology. They had, I think that's what it's called, uh, where you could, like, they had these stores. We had one in New York City, they had these stores, I'm pretty sure, um, I'm thinking it's like a Grand Central. I used to work near there as a, as a physical therapist. But anyway, uh, there was, you know, you could go into the store. You don't have to, you don't pay for anything. You just like literally walk in, pick up what you want, put it in your cart and then you like walk out, put in your bag and then you walk out.
[00:17:35] And it like just knows how to charge you and what to charge you and how much things are.
[00:17:40] These stores, right, these grocery stores, they were being touted as powered by AI, when in actuality they relied heavily on manual monitoring by about a thousand workers in India.
[00:17:55] People, humans watching cameras. And that's. And they're like, oh, I saw them pick up milk, I saw them pick this up. And now I will charge us to their account in 2022. 700 out of every 1000 transactions at these stores required manual review by that team in India.
[00:18:17] This is not AI. Amazon eventually scrapped the whole thing, right? We've are, we've seen this happen. It will always be cheaper to underpay humans. This is why Tesla, Tesla. But this is why Tesla is not ever going to have self driving cars, right? This is why Uber's not going to have self driving cars. This is why Waymo will have self driving cars because that company's all in on it. These other companies need bigger margins in order to go into this whole other field because it's expensive. The technology for these cars and the cost of these cars is expensive. Is way cheaper to just underpay some person that needs money and is like, well, I'm willing to drive to the shitty ass airport because I have rent to pay.
[00:18:58] Or um, terrible to say, but it's the truth. I'm not saying I want it, I'm just presenting this as, you know, part of the, part of the, part of the AI conversation. Uh, so the, the AI, excuse me, the Amazon example I just gave there is one that demonstrates an actual technological inability to perform the task, which I think is the case with some of the things that these companies are looking to outsource to AI and we're just seeing like, oh, it actually can't do it. And if you folks, you know, using AI, it is amazing in many ways, but it also has shortcomings in others. Right? Yes, it is getting better by all means, but I guess it currently stands. There are, you know, it can, it needs handholding with things. Right. But the bigger point that I want to make with this episode is that for many jobs, human interaction, human presence is actually integral because it is baked into the product as such, it can never be outsourced to AI like I've said 11 billion times before, where AI truly shines and fits in best.
[00:19:59] Uh, it's the administrative, repetitive, behind the scenes tasks that eat up time.
[00:20:04] So the goal here should be to free up time so that humans can focus on doing the things that only humans can do. And I don't say this in a free up time so humans can be more productive and do more of this stuff. It's just that like, if we're going to use AI, AI is great at augmenting things so that you have more time to be more human. Maybe that means go outside and touch grass, maybe that means you have less stress so you can actually go to the grocery store and interact with another human.
[00:20:31] Um, so if your job has parts that are deeply human and human interaction is part of the actual product, AI is not coming for your job. The nuance here is, is that AI isn't coming for your job at scale. So for anyone's like, that's, you know, still, you know, wants to push back or is like, but what about, I do not think that AI is coming for your job at scale.
[00:20:53] Right. For the individuals who do not value or don't want human interaction as part of the experience, then yes, AI could be tagged in. So yeah, you could get a, you know, a personal training program and have AI make it. But a large part of the process, right? Or the experience is having a trainer that you trust and having them hold you accountable and also making them proud. You're not going to make AI proud. It's not going to remember that you did this thing. It's not going to celebrate you and people will stop using that program because of that.
[00:21:23] But the nuance again, if your job, or rather for individuals who don't value or don't want human interaction as part of the experience, yes, AI, ah, could be tagged in. But we must remember that we are a social species. It's hard for me to say social spe.
[00:21:44] I can't say it, I can't say it. But you know what I'm saying? We are a social people by nature.
[00:21:50] That's the first thing. Second one off, preferences, uh, they are not at all representative of the whole. So it just goes like this. Few people are like, I hate having people there. That is not representative of the majority.
[00:22:02] And lastly, rugged individual.
[00:22:06] Oh, I can't read.
[00:22:07] Lastly, can't speak rugged individualism. It is a cultural myth.
[00:22:14] Humans need and want other humans.
[00:22:19] All right, let's wrap that up. We'll get into how I used AI this week and then we will do the official episode wrap up. So for those of you who don't know each episode, I share a quick example of how I used AI that week. This week I use the Doc Hub dupe to PDF filler that I built out with cloud code a few weeks ago. And I'm, um, bringing this up because something that I want you all to be aware of when it comes to Vibe coding is that maintenance is also a thing.
[00:22:45] All right, I love capital L, O, V E. Love Vibe coding, my own personal web apps. And I really do think that it's, you know, the ultimate use case for Vibe coding. But the reason why Vibe coding will not kill SaaS, in case you don't know, SaaS is software service. So things like ConvertKit, HubSpot, Notion Method, SaaS. The reason that Vibe coding won't kill those things things is because just like a house, over time things can and will break.
[00:23:09] Um, you gotta have maintenance and upkeep and troubleshooting. So my Doc Hub dupe, it worked just fine. There was actually no issues. But I, ah, have had to use quad code in the past to troubleshoot some of, uh, to troubleshoot issues with my podcast automation.
[00:23:24] Um, because part of the software that I tie into it updated and it caused part of the workflow flow to break.
[00:23:31] Uh, and so, you know, this is a thing in my opinion.
[00:23:36] This is by no means a reason to not Vibe code your own solutions.
[00:23:40] But, um, it's definitely something to be aware of, which is why I made it this week's how I used AI this week example. So, speaking of, uh, last things last, speaking of Vibe coding, I will be hosting that small group intro to Vibe coding training. I decided I'm going to do it. Um, I just got to figure out the logistics, my logistics. I mean just the date and what makes most sense. Um, but keep an eye out for registration and definitely DM me if you're interested. This way I can just send you the information if I have it. All right, all right, that is all for today. Hopefully you found this episode helpful if you did consider leaving a little rating or review. I haven't checked recently so maybe we got some more. But I'd love to hit 3030 ratings, that would be great. Um, and I read every single review. Just, just makes me really, really happy. So I will go check after this. Um, and then I'll shout you out next week if, if we do have a new one. But, uh, don't forget, I also have a companion newsletter, the Curious Companion, that drops every Thursday. That is basically exactly the podcast episode in text format. So if you prefer to read or you just want a written record of the things, join the newsletter. Bam. You can head to prompting curiosity.com, um, forward slash newsletter. Or you can check out the link in the show notes. As always, my friends, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until we chat again next Thursday, stay curious.
