The Great Reset: Could AI Make Human "Thought Leaders" Irrelevant?
How AI Threatens to Upend Society's Elite Class
Are you a thought leader? Someone for whom words or ideas are part of how you earn a living? As you are reading this, I'm sure at the very least you're interested in words & ideas and appreciate the value they can bring.
The development of AI has the potential to disrupt many areas, one of the most significant is anyone who uses words or ideas as a key source of their skill and value.
This includes professions such as Writers, Graphic Designers, Lawyers, Journalists, Editors, Diplomats, Politicians, Public Relations Specialists, Speechwriters, Marketing Managers, Academic Researchers, Creative Directors, Literary Agents, Political Analysts and Brand Strategists.
These are some of the most elite, prestigious and highly valued professions that have huge potential to be disrupted. This disruption might even be to the extent of making some of these professions redundant to a lesser or greater degree. The implications for what this could mean for societies are considerable.
Could AI lead to a Profound Shift In Society?
In a recent article in Cryptopolitan magazine 'The Disruptive Power Of Advanced AI: A Profound Shift In Society' they explored some of the potential of AI not only to disrupt these elite professions but what this might also mean for the structures of society and global geopolitics.
Some of the key points it highlighted were:
Advanced AI threatens the status and earning potential of professions reliant on words and symbols, potentially altering societal hierarchies.
The rise of AI challenges the historical trend of elevating “ideas people,” as AI systems become proficient in generating creative solutions.
AI’s transformative power creates a potential for conflict when dynamic technologies intersect with static institutions, necessitating strategic competition among nations.
One of the main takeaways was this:
AI’s growing capabilities threaten to alter the societal hierarchy that has long favoured “ideas people” who excel at developing and expressing new ways of thinking. This shift is both profound and unprecedented.
We will look at these key points raised and explore their potential impact.
The Reversal of a historical trend
Over the last 300 years, there has been a significant shift away from manual labour, and towards valuing the work of knowledge, ideas & words more and more.
In the 17th century in Europe began the Enlightenment the 'Age of Reason' which first started to value ideas over religious faith. Shortly after followed the scientific revolution, then the industrial revolution, and more recently the information revolution.
We can also see this in the way over recent decades western economies have transitioned from more manufacturing & agricultural industries to economies dominated by service industries for example in the UK.
Shifting from Manual to 'Knowledge' Work
In 'The Shift from Manual Work to Knowledge Work' Fred Nickols highlights how this shift has happened over time. He describes how this historical trend accelerated during the 20th century:
In 1920, the ratio of manual workers to knowledge workers was 2:1. By 1980, things were the other way around. The mid-point in this shift seems to be 1956, the year white-collar workers first outnumbered blue-collar workers (Naisbitt, 1982). In recent testimony before a senate subcommittee, the percentage of knowledge workers in the computer industry was estimated at 72% (13% managerial, 15% clerical, and 44% technical and professional); and, on the other side of the coin, the percentage of the employed workforce engaged in actual manufacturing operations was estimated at 13%.
Nickols also highlights how this shift from manual to knowledge work also corresponded to a shift in control over the work that people do:
So, between 1920 and 1980, while managers, academics, and consultants in this country were occupied finding bigger, better, and more complex ways of controlling the worker, working slipped quietly out of sight, taking control of work with it. The new breed of worker, the knowledge worker, had a new job. Instead of converting instructions and procedures into actions that in turn converted materials from one form to another, the task was to convert knowledge into actions which converted information from one form to another. It fell to the knowledge worker to figure out what did or did not produce results and it still does...The result of these self-developed reference conditions has been a shift in the locus of control, from the manager to the worker. In turn, there has been a shift in the balance of power within organisations; indeed, within society.
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Later he highlights how this began the erosion and subversion of traditional work hierarchies:
One conclusion, then, is that professionals in the fields of performance and instruction must do what managers in organizations must do; namely, “develop new approaches, new principles, and new methods -- and fast”...Organizations will be “atomized” (Deal & Kennedy, 1982); or they will consist of “networks” (Naisbitt, 1982); or if hierarchies remain at all, they will be “flatter and more transient” (Toffler, 1980). In short, decentralization is the rage and the pyramid will be variously exploded, smashed, or flattened.
Finally, he concludes why knowledge work is likely to further dominate going forward:
We are all in the business of buying and selling knowledge from [and to] one another because we are each so profoundly ignorant of what it takes to complete the [larger] process of which we are a part (Sowell, 1980).
All this of course pre-dates what we might call the 'AI revolution' which arguably has just started around late 2022.
However, this context helps us more fully appreciate how pre-existing historical trends for over 300 years have created the perfect conditions for modern generative AI to effect a perfect 'coup d'etat' right at the top of this new knowledge-based work hierarchy, created by us.
The Inevitable Conflict: AI and Static Institutions
We have seen how the shift from manual to knowledge & ideas-based work has created disruptions not only to the type of work we do but to hierarchical structures and control over that work. But there is also the potential for AI to clash with static social institutions.
I've written recently about how the EU's recent AI regulations might end up making things worse rather than better in 'Why Banning AI Is the Worst Thing You Can Do for Your Safety'.
A report by the OECD also highlighted some of the potential dangers AI could pose for the functioning of many institutions and governments:
AI could give governments unprecedented surveillance power over citizens. It could exacerbate mis/disinformation and deepfakes, while simultaneously improving tools to combat such synthetic media. AI could undermine democratic values by perpetuating and amplifying social inequalities. It could further undermine trust and the social contract (although we’ve done a sufficient job of debasing that all by ourselves). It could challenge politicians and communicators in terms of AI’s disruption of work, employment and economies.
It also highlighted some of the potential benefits:
AI will sift through large amounts of data to help inform government policy decisions. It could predict and help prevent instances of election interference and improve public services. It might change the balance of power between governments and citizens by giving citizens more voice and agency. It could be used within citizen assemblies to help with facilitation, information gathering, consensus building and idea generation. Citizen assemblies could be asked to recommend AI policies. AI will likely help the media in its watchdog efforts.
The Broader Context of Global Competition
As well as the effect AI is likely to have on individual countries within their social institutions and structures, there are also potential effects on international relations and global geopolitics.
In an article by Rand 'How Might AI Affect the Rise and Fall of Nations?' they explain how AI might disrupt the functioning of our more familiar structures of international relations:
As AI continues to advance, geopolitics may never be the same. Humans organised in nation-states will have to work with another set of actors—AI-enabled machines—of equivalent or greater intelligence and, potentially, highly disruptive capabilities. In the age of geopolitics, human identity and human perceptions of our roles in the world will be distinctly different; monumental scientific discoveries will emerge in ways that humans may not be able to comprehend.
They also highlight the fact AI could easily become an actor with knowledge and ideas of its own in this space:
Although technology has often influenced geopolitics, the prospect of AI means that the technology itself could become a geopolitical actor. AI could have motives and objectives that differ considerably from those of governments and private companies. Humans' inability to comprehend how AI "thinks" and our limited understanding of the second-and third-order effects of our commands or requests of AI are also very troubling. Humans have enough trouble interacting with one another. It remains to be seen how we will manage our relationships with one or more AIs.
A New World Order
AI has the potential to upend and disrupt thought leaders at every level of society, both within countries and at the global geopolitical level. To what extent, and how quickly remains to be seen.
The driving forces of economic advantage, business opportunities, and geopolitical competition are likely to mean these disruptions are likely to happen sooner and to a greater extent.
As Cryptopolitan puts it:
The advent of advanced AI technologies is poised to reshape society, disrupt traditional power structures, and spur international competition. The “words” class, characterised by professions relying on words and symbols, may face challenges to their status and earnings as AI continues to advance. The historical trend that elevated “ideas people” may be reversed as AI gains prominence. Moreover, the collision of dynamic AI technologies with static institutions is likely to generate conflict and necessitate strategic competition among nations.
We can also better appreciate this given the historical context we covered, and how much more agency and control ideas workers have compared to manual work previously. Therefore, not only could AI replace these types of tasks, but take with it the agency and authority we have given knowledge work over time to AI as well by proxy.
The move from manual labour to knowledge and idea work already disrupted work hierarchies and the control of that work. The dawn of AI is a credible and realistic further disruption of established hierarchies for idea & knowledge workers as well as society more broadly.
For anyone working in the words & knowledge professions, a head-in-the-sand or ignore approach is not likely to be the most advantageous in these fast-moving times.
It's quite likely in many cases with ideas and knowledge work, AI is likely to start with the 'low hanging fruit' showing the most benefit by automating more basic tasks.
The best pitch and USP for professionals would most likely be a value-add approach. Essentially, the ideas and knowledge workers who know how to integrate AI into their workflows to do their work more productively while adding their unique human skills in the areas where AI falls short, are more likely to thrive as this transition takes place.
This is likely to be true for societies and nations, as well as for individuals.
For more on how thought leaders & knowledge workers might best adapt to these changes, I have written in detail about this in 'Will AI Take Our Jobs or Give Us New Purpose? Navigating the Future of Work'.
I use AI as part of my writing process, as a tool to help improve my own writing and more. Like to learn how to use AI to help your writing & more?
Nice read, thanks! I have partially supported myself by tech writing, and after reading this interesting article, I am glad I retired five months ago! Things will change in inter and disruptive ways.