by
Jim Hightower
The
great thing about corporate giants is that they are such amazing
business innovators. Look at the Big Four airline oligopoly, for
example. They've perfected the unique business model of the
"double-squeeze": squeezing more customers into
ever-smaller seats while simultaneously squeezing more money out of
customers' pockets. What genius!
But in
the category of "wheel-spinning" innovation — i.e.,
trying to change a corporation's course without actually changing
anything — it's hard to top McDonald's. For several years, the
fast-food chain has been losing customers to younger chains with
healthier, more stylish offerings. So, its CEO, Steve Easterbrook,
has tried again and again to recoup the losses by tinkering with the
menu, calling it "healthy" and "fresh." But
McNuggets and fries are still what they are, so people have not
bitten the PR bait.
So the
burger boss looked out at his 38,000 chain stores, and he had a
vision — eureka! — of the creative change that would cause hungry
eaters to flock to the Golden Arches: AI.
What? AI
stands for artificial intelligence, the rapidly advancing digital
technology of creating cerebral computers — essentially, robots
that think. Able to program themselves, act on their own and even
reproduce, these cognitive automatons are coming soon to McDonald's
and other workplaces near you.
Yes,
exclaimed the innovative CEO, consumers need a robotic order-taker to
advise them on what to order — based on AI's ability to analyze
millions of data bits about the weather, traffic, time of day and
what other people are ordering. "Decision technology" it's
called, and Steve spent 300 million McDollars to buy a whole company
that peddles these so-called thinking machines.
The AI
outfit says the benefit of its brainy computer system is that it
allows "the rapid and scalable creation of highly targeted
digital interactions." Now what could be more inviting than
that?
Easterbrook
adds excitedly that his innovative deployment of this artificial
intelligence network will provide an "even more personalized
customer experience." Sure, Steve, nothing like more computers
to add a warm personal touch to wolfing down another cookie-cutter
Big Mac.
Far from
helping you, the snazzy new AI ordering system at McDonald's will be
helping the corporation by silently compiling personal information
about you, ranging from your "movement patterns" to your
license plate number. As Easterbrook admits, McDonald's will use the
technology to "make the most" of the data collected.
The CEO
of McDonald's may be talking about his "digital interaction"
plan, but most corporate bosses won't talk about theirs in public.
Amongst themselves — psssst — they whisper excitedly about
implementing a transformative "AI agenda" across our
economy.
Not
wanting to stir the preemptive rebellion by human workers who're
being targeted for displacement, corporate chieftains are carefully
avoiding terms like "robotic automation," substituting
euphemisms like "digital transformation." In their
boardrooms and clubrooms, however, top executives see AI as their
golden calf — a holy path to windfall profits and personal
enrichment by replacing whole swaths of their workforce with an
automated army of cheap machines that don't demand raises, take time
off or form unions. Kai-Fu Lee, a longtime tech exec, confided to The
New York Times that AI "will eliminate 40 percent of the world's
jobs within 15 years."
Some
CEOs are so giddy about AI's profiteering potential that they openly
admit their intentions. Take Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics giant
hailed as a job-creating savior by Donald Trump last year when it was
given $3 billion in public subsidies to open a huge manufacturing
plant in Wisconsin. Now, it's reneging on its promises, and Foxconn's
honcho says he intends to replace 80% of its workers with robots
within 10 years. Corporate apologists cavalierly claim that displaced
humans can be "reskilled" to do something else. But what?
Where? When? No response ... and no plans.
Executives
try to skate by the human toll by saying that the machine takeover is
a natural process, the inevitable march of technological progress.
Hogwash! The AI agenda is not coming from the gods, nature or
machines. It's a choice being made by an elite group of corporate and
political powers trying to impose their selfish interests on everyone
else.
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