We need to change the record on AI

A trailer for Radio Four’s Positive Thinking programme this morning opened by asking how humans would survive in a world where AI is predicted to displace 85million jobs in the next five years.

The framing of the AI story, in mainstream media at least, is frustratingly narrow. It has an air of resigned inevitability, that, should we apply the same attitude to the climate crisis, would see us ushering forth disaster in the blink of an eye. 

In the superb Russell T Davies dystopia, Years and Years, Gran silences the collective moaning of the family gathered around the dinner table by telling them bluntly that, ‘this is the world that we built.’ 

Beginning her rant with the lure of the one-pound T-shirt and moving on to the introduction of self-service checkouts, her message is unflinching and unequivocal, we each build the world by deciding what we put up with. 

The AI story is a case in point. Should we just accept the narrative that casts workers as the cannon fodder against the guns of big tech? By doing so, we paint our own vision of a future dystopia that may well not arrive, while normalising a narrative that isn’t helpful. We also completely gloss over the potential benefits of the technology, for people and the environment. From a communications perspective, we repeat the same mistakes that were made around the reporting of climate change. 

In the rush to show journalistic balance, the media, in particular, the BBC, unintentionally undermined public trust in the science by continually questioning the scientific consensus. By presenting human displacement by AI as an apocalyptic inevitability, the media risks making a similar mistake. 

AI may well displace 85 million jobs in the next five years, or it may discover some game-changing solutions that serve humanity, help repair the planet and actually create jobs. Whatever the outcome, the world we build will depend, not just on our consumption habits, but on the stories that we’re willing to put up with too.