> When machines take over more work and boost our productivity, Brynjolfsson says, that's generally a great thing. It means that society is getting richer, that

> When machines take over more work and boost our productivity, Brynjolfsson says, that's generally a great thing. It means that society is getting richer, that the economic pie is getting larger. > after the software company adopted AI, the average customer support representative became, on average, 14 percent more productive. They were able to resolve more customer issues per hour. That's huge. The company's workforce is now much faster and more effective. They're also, apparently, happier. Turnover has gone down, especially among new hires. ... Not only that, the company's customers are more satisfied. > "And what this system did was it took people with just two months of experience and had them performing at the level of people with six months of experience," Brynjolfsson says. "So it got them up the learning curve a lot faster — and that led to very positive benefits for the company." This is all great... for the company. Is it great for their people though? I don't think so. It has many benefits that allow the company to perform better and save money by hiring less qualified people who require less training and are more easily replaced. IOW, it moves workers more toward commodities and removes any leverage they may have based on their skills and talent to earn more money. Let's just skip ahead to the part where all workers are replaced by AI. (I know that's never going to happen, but let's examine the limit anyway.) How are people supposed to pay for all the wonderful shit that these successful companies are producing? What's the economic value of a person in such a world?