Surprise, surprise

From Recode:

We seem to have accepted that the robots will someday take our jobs — but it’s the men, for once, who will be getting the short end of the economic stick. Automation and artificial intelligence will affect Americans unevenly, according to data from McKinsey and the 2016 US Census. Meanwhile, many executives have been wringing their hands in public over the negative consequences that AI and automation could have for workers. But many of the suits at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos privately admit to racing to automate their workforces to stay ahead of the competition, with little regard for the impact on workers.

Usual story: corporations are full of nice, decent human beings (well, some companies are anyway). But the organisations for which they work are still sociopathic artificial intelligences. There are exceptions, but they’re rare. That’s why, among other things, we have to rethink the nature of the corporation — as thinkers like John Kay and Colin Meyer have been arguing.