By Bob Gaydos

How will AI affect knowledge workers?

 I accidentally (by not being in charge of the remote) wandered into a YouTube Ted Talk by Cathie Wood the other day and, realizing I was a hostage, I half-listened for a while.

      Wood is founder and CEO of ARK, an investment company that in recent years has made her millions as well as making her the darling genius of every stock market/investment show on regular TV and YouTube. Tesla was her not-so-secret word. She’s soured on Nvidia. But that’s not what grabbed my attention this night. This talk wasn’t about what stock to buy. It was about artificial intelligence. AI.

    “Did she just say ‘knowledge workers,’?” I asked the person in charge of the remote.

      “Uh huh.”

      “What the heck are ‘knowledge workers’?” I said quietly to myself, so as not to disturb anyone actually listening to the talk. Google will know.

       And it did.

       A variety of Human Resources sources told me pretty much the same thing. “Knowledge work” requires a high degree of cognitive skill, competence, knowledge, curiosity, expertise and creativity in problem-solving, critical thinking, gathering data, analyzing trends and decision-making. The work involves solving issues, making judgments. Applying knowledge.

     It sounded important.

     “Heck,” I thought to myself, “I was a knowledge worker.”

      One source# confirmed that with this list of  professional knowledge workers:

• Accountant
• Computer Programmer
• Consultant
• Data/Systems Analyst
• Designer
• Engineer
• Lawyer
• Marketing/Financial Analyst
• Pharmacist
• Physician
• Researcher
• Scientist
• Software Developer
• Web Designer
• Writer/Author

    There I was. At the bottom of the list, but it was alphabetical. I was and still am a knowledge worker, at least in the words and world of Cathie Wood and all those other CEOs of hedge funds and Big Tech companies. 

      I used to be content being identified as a newspaperman or journalist. It was simple and understandable to everyone for about half a century. I wrote stuff to let people know what was going on in the world and maybe help them make sense of it. I tried.

      But the Internet introduced a new brand of people doing the same thing. Sort of. First, there came “influencers.” These are people who post information on social media platforms for others to view or read and react to. Well, I did that. Still do. But I didn’t get any contracts from companies to push their jeans or sneakers or other products. I guess I was not a very influential influencer.

      Then came the most insulting of all terms, the one so many professional HR people on Linkedin seem to be looking for daily: “Content creators.”

        The operating philosophy here seems to be, “We don’t really care how good or accurate or timely or well-written or even creative your content is, as much as we care that there’s enough of it to occupy our platform daily. Click bait is acceptable.”

        Some of the “content” is readable. Much is not, at least in the judgment of this knowledge worker.

        However, the salient point in this discussion is not so much who is or who is not a knowledge worker, but rather, is this a job title in danger of disappearing, not because the titans of industry have figured out yet another way to label mere mortals in a condescending manner, but because their seemingly vital jobs will be filled by computer chips.

      Wood, remember, was talking about AI. The question being, how will AI affect the need for all these knowledge workers in the future? Can these big firms save a bundle of money by having AI do the work of knowledgeable, creative people who are good at solving problems and decision-making? 

    To which I reply, “How can such a knowledge worker today even recommend a change that may eliminate his or her job?”

     AI is far from there, as anyone who watches some of the prepared programming on YouTube about how to make your life better, or what country to move to or Medieval history is aware. The content is often comparable to a poorly written fifth-grade essay plagiarized from a variety of sources and a “narrator” who often can’t pronounce the words correctly.

   It’s clear no human had a hand in presenting this program and, apparently, no human ever bothered to edit it to make it less amateurish. Because, you know, money saved. The lure of AI.

Cathie Wood

           But this is just the beginning, as Wood reminds us, and the Big Techs will go as far as they can, unless someone (Congress?) says “That’s too far.”

      The HR specialists I found in my knowledge worker capacity noted that “knowledge work” is intangible. This means it does not include physical labor or manual tasks. But if you work with your hands and you’re good at it, don’t get too cocky regarding artificial intelligence and your future. Wood has another scary word in her vocabulary: Robots. She loves them.

      Now, to be fair and thorough, I must note that there’s also another word that has been applied to people who do what I do, which included writing daily newspaper editorials for 23 years: Pundit.

       Here’s how Wikipedia, defines it: “A pundit is a learned person who offers opinion in an authoritative manner on a particular subject area (typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport), usually through the mass media.”

        I’m not trying to beef up my obituary, but I think that fits me and this pundit suggests that other knowledge workers pay close attention when millionaire influencers like Cathie Wood start talking about replacing them with computerized content creators. Eventually it won’t be just rising stock prices and amateurish YouTube shows.

       And that’s my Ted Talk today.

(# Much of the information on knowledge workers in this column is from a piece by Robin Modell for Flexjobs. She is an experienced journalist, author and corporate writer and a contributor to the On Careers section of U.S. News & World Report. Clearly, a knowledge worker.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Kylie Jenner … queen of selfies

It’s been awhile since I put my name on something I wrote, mostly because there’s really been only one one thing to write about. But other life goes on, so …

Last time out, I wrote about how I had recently come to the realization that, much as I chafed at the designation, given the 21st century dilution of the term and the relaxed admission standards that allow anyone with an attitude and an audience into the club, I was — am — for better or worse, a pundit.

 In my defense, just being able to write that sentence should qualify me.

But punditry, I have even more recently learned, is small potatoes (chicken feed, chump change, yesterday’s news) compared to the title to which anyone with any interest in the power of persuasion today should aspire.

I want to be an influencer.

Really. It’s a job. I just found out. Some pundit.

Influencer is such a legitimate thing that Forbes Magazine has initiated a list of the Top 10 Influencers for 2018 in a variety of  categories. It’s starting with Beauty, Fitness and Home, capitalized I assume for influence.

Apparently one qualifies for this list by telling tens of thousands — even millions — of people who follow you on social media what beauty products you prefer, the type of fitness regimens, supplements, food, clothes you prefer or let them in on the type of furniture or decor you like to surround yourself with when relaxing at “home.” Then a lot of those people go out and buy the stuff. Companies pay you for your creative messaging.

It’s kinda like being a shill. In fact, it’s exactly like being a shill. It just pays a lot better, if you’re, you know, influential.

If you sense me being a bit flippant and sarcastic about this discovery it may at least in part be because I am not just a little bit envious of these people who have discovered a way to earn a good living by sitting home, posting photos and writing blurbs on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites and being paid by companies whose product they promote. You don’t even have to use it. All you really need is a ton of followers who believe you and apparently await your every posting to find out what they should really like, then buy it.

For one thing, this says a lot about buying habits today, when so much shopping is done on the internet, with no opportunity to check out the merchandise firsthand. Well, heck, if Randi Jo Cutie Pie says those are cool candles or neat boots or dynamite hair products, they must be. Look, she’s got a million and a half followers.

The Forbes list was heavily female and mostly millennials, which would suggest that a male in his seventh decade might look for another line of work. It’s also prominently featured on Instagram, which I thought was mostly for sharing cellphone photos. So, on second thought, I’m going to stick to punditry, where I don’t have to worry about competing with Kylie Jenner or Cardi B.

Yet.

— Maybe it’s just me, but …if I’m going to get the news that I’m about to shake off the coils of my current mortal construct and rejoin the Greater Consciousness in some other form real soon, I want a living, breathing doctor standing next to my bed delivering the diagnosis as compassionately as possible, not a streaming image of someone, presumably a doctor, on a screen on a machine wheeled into my hospital room.

Ernest Quintana didn’t get that personal treatment at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Fremont, Calif. Instead, with his 33-year-old granddaughter standing by his bedside, the 78-year-old, who had been admitted to the hospital for the third time in 15 days because of difficulty breathing, heard the headset-wearing image on the screen say there was serious lung damage. “Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can treat very effectively,” the image said. He also said giving his “patient” morphine might help with pain, but would make breathing more difficult. He topped off his “On Demand” consultation by responding to a question about hospice care thusly: “I don’t know if he’s going to get home.”
     

The grand daughter was mortified, as were Quintana’s wife and daughter, who had briefly left the hospital to go home and shower. They complained to the hospital, which was semi-apologetic. Quintana died two days later.

They call it telemedicine and it presumably has its place, but a spokesperson for the AMA said delivering a death sentence electronically should be a doctor’s “last choice.”

Don’t they teach this stuff in med school?

—  Speaking of insensitivity, maybe it’s just me, but the State of Virginia would appear to have a serious race issue. The governor, Ralph Northam, is desperately trying to repair his image after a racist yearbook photo of him was published and he subsequently admitted to wearing blackface in his youth. The state’s attorney general admitted likewise. Both men are white. But get this, mere days after her husband pledged to devote the rest of his term to racial equity, his wife, Pam, leading a tour of the governor’s mansion, handed raw, prickly cotton to 13-and-14-year-old black pages and asked them, “Can you imagine being an enslaved person and having to pick this all day?”

No, they couldn’t and no, they weren’t happy with the hands-on history lesson. Neither were their parents. A former middle school teacher, Northam said she does the same with all the history tours she leads.

Maybe they need to re-evaluate that lesson in First Lady school.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Not even marginal.

A colleague of mine who gets paid to write his opinions for others to read recently referred to himself as a “pundit.”

    “Hmmm,” I said to myself with a touch of surprise, “guess that makes me a pundit, too.”

    This colleague, you see, took over my opinion-writing job when I retired, but I still fill in for him when he feels like taking a break from punditing. It’s in the blood.

    The problem I have with using the word, “pundit,” and why I never regarded myself as one is that it always suggested to me a certain level of expertise in some subject area rather than an ability to deliver opinions on a variety of subjects and sound fairly rational and moderately intelligent (most of the time) while doing so.

     Also, today the word seems to imply so much more than what is delivered. Once upon a time there was William Buckley. I disagreed with him often, but I’d still call him a pundit. More recently, George Will and Charles Krauthammer from that side of the aisle. But today Steve Doocy is a pundit? And Brian Kilmeade? Lou (start a war with China) Dobbs? Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham?

     Yes, they are all from the Fox pundit stable, but if they qualify as pundits, well …

    I went to Wikipedia: “A pundit is a person who offers to mass media his or her opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically political analysis, the social sciences, technology or sport) on which he or she is knowledgeable (or can at least appear to be knowledgeable), or considered a scholar in said area.”

    The phrase “or can at least appear to be knowledgeable” leaped off the screen. Aha! Thank you, Wiki, for clarifying the issue. Talking heads who deliver unsupported opinions with conviction — a TV invention — now are regarded as pundits. In that case, move over looney tunes Anne Coulter and Tucker Carlson. I’ve been at this punditry business longer than you two and I know racists when I hear them.

    So, punditly speaking, I find myself depressed and mystified that polls continue to report that 80 percent of Republicans approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as president. Of course, these pollsters are considered pundits, too, and they told us, with all their expertise, that Hillary Clinton would beat Trump in 2016. There’s that “at least appear to be knowledgeable” part again. Many of those polled Republicans, of course, are being fed “expert” analysis from those Fox pundits.

    Unfortunately, so is Trump.

    And so what has government by failed businessman/congenital liar/amoral Russian asset guided by phony Fox pundits gotten us?

— A “president” sitting alone in the White House on Christmas Eve, having shut down the federal government in spite because Congress didn’t give him the $5 billion box of Legos he wanted to build a wall he proudly promised his buddies Mexico would pay for. Instead, government workers went without pay for the holiday, whether they worked or not. Members of Congress did get paid, even though they clearly weren’t doing their job. A pundit might say this looked particularly bad for Republicans since they control all three branches of government and still couldn’t keep it open for Christmas. Happy New Year?

— A ‘’president” whose most recent chief of staff quit or was fired and who can’t find anyone qualified who is willing to take the job. Mick Mulvaney, of course, who is glad to have any and every job in the administration, even temporarily (budget director, Consumer Protection head), said he’d be glad to do it because he has no problem swallowing his pride and being ridiculed daily as long as he can continue to deprive needy Americans of government assistance.

— A “president” who, in addition to having an “acting” chief of staff, has an “acting” secretary of defense, an “acting” attorney general, no secretary of the interior, an “acting” EPA administrator, no United Nations ambassador (but one of those former Fox News blonde talking heads being prepped for the job), no ambassadors to Bolivia, Brazil, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Egypt, Estonia, Jordan, Libya, Mexico, Pakistan, Panama, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela, and dozens of other vacancies in key positions throughout government.

— A “president” who has antagonized all U.S. allies and cozied up to murderous tyrants.

— A “president” who tells a 7-year-old girl on Christmas Eve that believing in Santa Claus is “marginal,” while he still insists that global warming is a myth.

 — A “president” who is under investigation in every area of his life and who no longer takes credit for the performance of the plummeting stock market.

  — A “president” who presides over a political party without the  courage or moral fiber to stand up to his utter incompetence and corruption.

    There’s more, but let me return to that pundit thing, if I may. The word comes from the Hindi “pandit.” It, in turn, was derived from the Sanskrit “pandita,” which means “a learned man or scholar.”

    That’s where I came in. I’m still uncomfortable with the word, but I will state my view with conviction: I believe Donald Trump has exposed the dark, ugly, fearful nature of much of American society, which has been hiding in the shadows for years. He has shown the Republican Party to be full of cowards and sycophants, and greedy ones at that. He may well be the death of the GOP as we have known it. Finally, he has revealed the hypocrisy of the evangelicals.

    A pundit might say these are important lessons for any society to learn in order to survive and evolve. A good thing. I get it. Perhaps I should be thankful. But evolution can be a slow process and those polls of approval for Trump by Republicans do not inspire patience. It isn’t easy being a pundit.

rjgaydos@gmail.com