AI Will Dehumanize the Job Hunt

I had been raised on stories of how the go-getters get going. You show up, you demonstrate desire to work, you list your skills and your aptitude, and someone out there, desperate for good, reliable help, will give you a chance. Bob Iger was a weatherman in Ithaca, then in 1974 started as a studio supervisor — a very low-level production job. He built a reputation for hard work and eventually became the CEO of Disney. Barry Diller started in the William Morris Agency mailroom. He got curious about how the entertainment business worked and used free time to read the agency’s files. He would eventually rise to higher positions, invent the “Movie of the Week,” and go on to run Paramount and Fox. Often these stories involve finding an older, experienced person as a mentor. Sol Price, the founder of FedMart, took Jim Sinegal under his wing. Sinegal had started at FedMart by unloading mattresses at 18. Sinegal rose through the company and co-founded Costco. We have tear-jerking movies about this, such as The Pursuit of Happyness.

All those stories highlight that market relations, careers, and success are not just a kind of abstract exchange and extraction of value, but really stories of human endeavor, development, and relationships. The market isn’t just the exchange of “utils,” money, and labor; at its best, it is a kind of theater for human virtue and adventure. Greed, grasping, or manipulation are sinful; hard work, creativity, and the courage to put yourself out there are our participation in the great good work of Providence.