Kevin Surace argues that every generation has a technology that determines who stays employed. Excel in finance, the PC, the internet, smartphones: people who refused to learn them became unemployable. AI is that technology now, and workers ignoring it are being fired.
Every generation had one technology that determined whether you got hired or fired. Here's the one for this generation. When Excel showed up in the late '80s and you were in finance, there were some people who said, oh, I don't really want to learn Excel. I don't want to really do Excel. They no longer worked in finance. The gig was up. When the PC landed on the desktop, there were people who said, I don't need to learn this darn thing. They were no longer employable. Not just not employed, but not employable, right? The internet came along. We remember people that said, I'm not going to use that thing. There's no need for it at work. You can't work without the internet. So if they didn't learn the internet, then they're no longer there. Smartphones, same thing. So we've actually been through this with every technology layer we've ever had, probably all the way back to fire, right? All the way back to the wheel. Well, some people, I'm not going to use that thing. Oh, that's fine, then you won't be employed anymore. It's okay. And that's what's happening with AI, and that's why the only people being let go are the Luddites or the laggards that don't want to participate in this.
