Will Generative AI (ChaptGPT) Promote Traditional Conservative Values and Lifestyles?
What will happen to wokeness when jobs dominated by progressive liberals are automated?
--
I don’t know a single blue-collar worker that I would describe as woke.
Nor do I know of many blue-collar jobs that are likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence any time soon.
I hadn’t thought there could be a connection between those two statements and the future of the economy until I read an interesting commentary by Patricia Adams and Lawrence Solomon: “ChatGPT Will Sap the Woke World, Succor Conservatism.”
Let’s pause for a few definitions.
Blue-collar jobs are those that involve physical or manual labor, either skilled or unskilled. Blue-collar workers include police officers, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, roofers, construction workers, transportation workers, and so on.
Wikipedia offers this definition of woke:
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism and LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.
While it’s true that technology has made many blue-collar jobs easier and automation has replaced manually repetitive jobs (such as assembly lines, package sorting, etc.), it’s going to be a long time before a robot can fix my broken toilet or leaking roof. And in my experience, the people who do those kinds of jobs tend to be more traditional and conservative than not.
The jobs that are more likely to be eliminated by AI innovations such as ChatGPT are tech and media jobs — ones more likely held by progressive liberals who are deemed woke.
