It is a melancholy object, as Jonathan Swift once wrote, to read the reports of women in their 40s and 50s struggling to obtain job interviews, ostensibly due to AI software excluding their resumes based on their amount of experience.
asserted
women → write → experience
(We can assume experience is translating to assumptions about age.)
asserted
experience → assume → age
This is before anybody has set eyes on anybody, so imagine how much worse this could yet become.
uncertain
this → set → anybody
We are handing over recruitment — and therefore the basic ability for most people to earn a livelihood — to a monstrous new system invented by self-serving tech utopians , yet there’s not a whisper about how our governments will handle this sudden wave of need.
asserted
governments → hand → need
All the talk is of new data centres coming to save us by draining our water supply and whirring horrible noises!
asserted
centres → come → noises
We keep being told how AI will transform the world, but not the ways it will: by making us unemployed and creating mass water shortages.
asserted
us → tell → shortages
Never have people had less hope of retiring since, even before the tramp of AI, all the pensionable jobs have been replaced by a dumpster fire of zero-hour, self-employed contracts with no benefits.
asserted
jobs → have → benefits
See the tech bros tempting us towards paying less for our services (we all want to pay less, don’t we?), yet they scoop up to 40 per cent in fees for doing little toward supplying those services — and, in fact, instead destroying local businesses and scraping profit.
asserted
they → see → profit
Everyone is earning less and the bros are making off to the moon with billions in a sack.
asserted
bros → earn → sack
It’s a challenging time for Canada with the crazy neighbour-in-chief ‘s tariffs, erratic conniptions on lakes and daily digs disrespecting our nation’s sovereignty.
asserted
tariffs → ’ → sovereignty
Nor is it easy for new graduates and young people to find meaningful work.
asserted
graduates → find → work
But permitting AI to eradicate the employment opportunities of women between 40-60 isn’t going to keep the country afloat.
asserted
permitting → permit → country
Consider how many years of education, labour, experience and struggle women between 40 and 65 have gained.
asserted
women → consider → 40
Consider how many of these women arrived in Canada to face a professional reset or retrain for jobs they had done for a decade, because their qualifications were not recognized.
asserted
qualifications → consider → decade
Consider how many jobs these women will have juggled, while trying to earn a living.
asserted
women → consider → living
Many are raising or will have raised children and may now be dealing with elder care.
uncertain
Many → raise → care
We know these responsibilities disproportionately fall on women.
asserted
responsibilities → know → women
And then, on top of all that, they (we) must deal with the decade of physical catastrophe that can be menopause, with disrupted sleep, painful joints, hot flushes, brain fog and the 49 other symptoms.
asserted
that → deal → sleep
Forgive me if I internally combust, while reading about women applying for 442 jobs to obtain not a single interview.
asserted
I → forgive → interview
It’s attributed due
AI isn’t only eliminating employment and maximizing profit.
asserted
AI → attribute → profit
It’s also used to steal my books and does not compensate me.
asserted
It → use → me
AI is not the miracle panacea, yet that’s what we’re being fed.
asserted
we → ’ → what
Sure, you may prefer to use the unreliable short cuts to research .
uncertain
you → prefer → cuts
But this is also part of the reason nobody will stand up to the technology: when you are young you are frantically trying to establish yourself through training, education or any sniff of employment so that you can pay extortionate rents none of us can afford.
asserted
none → stand → us
You must live with your mother until you are 30 and then, if you wish to live independently, are forced to move far out of the city or even the suburbs to somewhere remote, with no public transit!
asserted
you → live → transit
Prejudice and dismissal are now coming at women from every corner: I am exhausted hearing words like “refreshed” from women bruised from facelifts or choosing to be poked by expensive and not risk-free neuromodulators, as though women owe the world some kind of visual apology for even being alive.
asserted
women → come → apology
Inevitably women need to be made of iron not to internalize the savage messaging from adverts and the algorithm insisting that those older than 50 are a living corpse.
asserted
those → need → 50
And who benefits?
asserted
who → benefit → ?
A clutch of billionaires who certainly don’t look “refreshed,” are likely to be tanked up on ketamine and who are unable to cook a carrot.
asserted
who → look → carrot
Are these the people we trust to lead us out of the current bedlam?
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we → trust → bedlam
I don’t think so.
asserted
I → think → ?
But I can certainly think of something else that needs refreshed: our outrage and our courage to fight back.
asserted
that → think → something
Maybe the latest reports that there’s a one-in-ten chance that AI could kill us all is enough.
uncertain
AI → ’ → us
You think?
asserted
You → think → ?
The Aporia
