Brutkey

Cory Doctorow
@pluralistic@mamot.fr

I don't think AI can do your job (but I do think an AI salesman can convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that *can't* do your job). However, there is a class of workers whose jobs can be performed perfectly by AI: workers with bullshit jobs:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/20/david-graebers-bullshit-jobs-why-does-the-economy-sustain-jobs-that-no-one-values/

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/06/unmerchantable-substitute-goods/#customer-disservice

1/

A hand-grenade whose pull-ring has a circular tag with the number 1 in the center of it dangling from it. Next to it, in dripping letters, is the phrase 'Customer service department - take a number,' over the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Behind the scene is a confusion of gears and mechanisms. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en -- KBetik (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grenade_cover_old.jpg CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Captain Superlative
@CptSuperlative@toot.cat

@pluralistic@mamot.fr

The actual sales pitch of AI hype:

We'll force people to accept shitty substitutes for human labor because we can.