Kevin Surace traces sabotage back to 19th-century workers throwing wooden shoes into machinery, then argues automation won anyway. He warns that people fighting AI are easiest to replace, urging workers to upskill and become the robot overlord instead of resisting.
The word sabotage comes from France in the mid-1800s when they were rolling out automation to automate clothing manufacturing and shoe manufacturing. And French workers would throw their sabots, their shoes, sabot, into the machine, therefore sabotaging the machine. All right. And they thought, that's it, we'll win over the automation. Okay, I don't have to tell you that automation won. In fact, the workers that were fired were the ones who threw their shoes in the machine. So the last thing you want to do is stand in the way of this progress. It's here, it's coming. And if you think it's coming for your job, then become the robot overlord, because when you become robot overlord, you're the one who stays. Well, this is the one who knows how to operate that new thing. Keep them. They are the AI expert. Keep them. You know who goes first? The people who go, I don't want to learn this stuff. In fact, I don't even want it here. Great. You can go work somewhere else because AI is here to stay. And if you think that AI is not here to stay in every part of your work life, you are wrong.
