So the author’s argument is that youth have just gone to gig work instead of traditional jobs. OK, maybe true, but first of all, this is not a good thing on its own either. And secondly, we have to consider why gig work even exists, aside from being a fresh new way to exploit workers and deny them the traditional protections of the labor market. Because there is a specific reason gig work exists right at this very transitional moment in the workforce, and I’ll give you a spoiler: It exists because of AI.
AI is going to do the same thing to gig work that gig work has already done to traditional youth employment. It represents the transitional step from traditional human labor to full automation. That’s part of the reason companies are using gig work in the first place. It makes it really easy to treat workers as instantly and transparently interchangable in an extremely efficient and flexible way. And they are going to start interchanging them not just with other gig workers, but AI drones – self driving cars, drones, and other machine infrastructure as it gets developed and matures. The flexibility allows them to absorb the impact of any issues with the technology by instantly falling back to more “human gigs” when needed, but whenever the technology becomes successful, the human jobs will just instantly evaporate as quickly as the technology can roll out, and not a single thought will ever be spared for the millions of gig working humans waiting for their phone to buzz for the next gig that will never come while looking at bills that are never going to get paid. That’s literally the goal that gig work exists to enable, it’s fundamentally designed for the AI endgame, it’s inevitably going to leave millions of people suddenly and quietly unemployed and unemployable without warning or even any official notification when it’s happening, and it’s coming sooner than we think.
gian@lemmy.grys.it 1 week ago
Wrong, gig work existed way before the advent of AI, even before the advent of Internet and PC. It was not uncommon that teenagers worked during the summer holidays to have money to go on holidays, to buy themself something or to pay for school or other activities.
The problem is that for some people it is the only way to work, and this was happening way before companies started to use AI for everything.
codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
You’re understanding of “gig work” is comically outdated. You sound naive or trollish. “Jobs for teens” like fast food work, grocery clerking, and working at movie theaters have always been taken by people who need “real jobs” and not just teens looking for extra money. So you’re wrong that these careers exclusively for kids to get pocket money ever existed, certainly not in living memory.
Secondly, OP isn’t talking about working the carwash for the simmer. He’s talking about Uber and AirBNB. Maybe you heard of them? Over the last decade, they’ve caused massive disruption of the hotel and taxi industries by allowing thousands of unlicensed and unregulated “micro entrepreneurs” 🤮 to create a new economy of pay-per-task workers who end up owning all the physical assets (which rapidly deprecate in value) but none of the infrastructure or investments (which do not, or do so on much different schedules).
Houses being bought up for short term rentals has contributed to the housing crisis. Its caused economic harm to inner cities. It’s a looking part of the polycrisis destroying the practical economy and the planet’s livability. But yeah man, the real problem is lazy people just don’t want real adult jobs, give me a fucking break.
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I agree with most all of that, but shit jobs for teens were all teens in the day. We started in those shit jobs, and our coworkers were all peers. That’s why so many middle-aged people don’t get the modern paradigm. The modern world no longer reflects our youth, at all.
I worked at Lowe’s for 5-months. But you’re right. Most of the gig workers coming through were older than me. I’m 54. Imagine that.
Signed, GenX.
123@programming.dev 1 week ago
There was no tech middleman taking in part of the profit while making every other part of the transaction a net negative for everyone else though. I do agree that AI might not have much to do with it though.