Ashish Kothari argues that using AI purely to cut labor costs backfires: fewer workers means fewer customers with money to buy things. The efficiency gains concentrate wealth among those who already have access while pushing displaced workers into poverty.
we can have mass displacement of people. And in the end, it's a serpent that eats its snake because if we use AI predominantly for efficiency and treating humans just as a cost, people as just a cost to be minimized, in the end, it's humans who actually spend money to buy things. And so at some point, right, you do that at scale, you actually fundamentally cut off revenue streams long-term. You also create a further amplification of the haves and the have-nots, right? Like significantly higher levels of poverty. Yes, we solve very hard problems, but the value disproportionately even more goes to those who have access versus those who have not.
Reducing Regrettable Attrition in Organizations by Fixing the System, Not the People Reducing Regret
