William Gould, one of the nation\u2019s leading experts on employment, sees artificial intelligence as a \u201clocomotive coming down the tracks\u201d with countless jobs in its path. He offers one major takeaway: \u201cWe\u2019re not ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Stanford University law school emeritus professor, who headed the U.S. National Labor Relations Board from 1994 to 1998 and the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board from 2014 to 2017, has spent his lengthy career studying labor and anti-discrimination law.<\/p>\n
His work has taken him to Washington, D.C., Detroit, London and South Africa. This news organization met with Gould at Stanford Law, where in 1972 he became the first Black professor, after\u00a0working as a visiting professor at Harvard University. Gould shed light on the looming threat to employment from artificial intelligence, possible social upheaval from massive job losses, and how topping up income through \u201cwage insurance\u201d for workers pushed by AI into lower-paying jobs may provide a partial solution.<\/p>\n
Gould, author of the recently published memoir Those Who Travail and Are Heavy Laden, also discussed pushback against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, along with the state of the labor movement, and White South Africans coming to the U.S. as refugees under the administration of President Donald Trump. His remarks have been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
Q: Every major industrial revolution has eliminated some jobs and created new ones. With AI, is it different this time?<\/p>\n
A: The breadth and depth of it are different. It is going to affect so many traditional tasks. Some have already been affected. Thus far we really haven\u2019t seen much in the way of loss of jobs. But it\u2019s coming. What\u2019s going to become of young people who are just coming out of school and who are looking for work and who don\u2019t have a college education? What frightens me is, as a society we seem to be focused on how big is it and what kind of jobs will be affected, rather than preparing the adequate safety net we\u2019re going to need to confront whatever change takes place.<\/p>\n
Q: What do you expect would be the effects of large-scale job losses?<\/p>\n
A: Obviously, divisiveness, maybe racial and religious divisiveness. Looking at this morning\u2019s newspapers \u2026 a number of political people are saying that the United States is not for Muslims, and the Republican leadership refuses to rebuke that. You just have to multiply that. Look what happened in the 1930s at the time of the Great Depression. This is what created the New Deal, this is what created the labor movement, this is what created the concept of shared prosperity. But don\u2019t forget, coming with that agenda were the most wild and hateful type of movements \u2026 the Ku Klux Klan.<\/p>\n
Q: What\u2019s standing in the way of ensuring people displaced by AI will be reasonably supported and retrained?<\/p>\n
A: The lack of political will and the increased inequality that exists in our society, and the influence that is reflected in that increased inequality: We\u2019re in a period where the billionaire class has obtained control over the workings of government, and perhaps ultimately much of our avenues of communication. Thus far we haven\u2019t had very much that can really be characterized as \u2026 AI dislocation, but it does appear to be coming and we\u2019re not ready for it. We\u2019re the only industrialized country in the world which does not provide for substantial wage insurance going for years, and providing for retraining and relocation.<\/p>\n
Q: What would wage insurance for people whose jobs are replaced by AI involve?<\/p>\n
A: We\u2019ve had legislation \u2026 purporting to provide pay to workers who are dislocated as a result of trade issues, competition from foreign companies. The Republicans fought it, and it\u2019s died. What wage insurance does is to take the kind of concept which was enacted by Congress in the early \u201970s and apply it to a different cause for layoffs, the technological innovation which eliminates work. The European countries, particularly the Scandinavian countries, have led the way in providing wage protection for workers who are laid off because of technological innovation.<\/p>\n
Q: It sounds very expensive \u2014 how would the U.S. pay for that?<\/p>\n
A: It will be expensive. Surely a country that can spend a billion dollars a day on a war of choice can afford a modest commitment for a safety net to protect workers whose jobs are lost as a result of AI.<\/p>\n
Q: You\u2019ve been working for fair workplaces for decades. What\u2019s changed for organized labor?<\/p>\n
A: The primary reason we have union decline is the ossification of the movement. The movement has become bureaucratic. You don\u2019t have unions committed to bringing in new young people. The other problem is this AI locomotive coming down the tracks, which is going to wreak havoc for workers. I don\u2019t see any kind of sustained national effort along the lines of providing for protection for workers from the consequences.<\/p>\n
Q: You were the first Black professor at Stanford law school, and you wrote in your memoir about being referred to, in today\u2019s language, as a \u201cdiversity hire.\u201d What do you see happening now, with DEI programs being described as discrimination against White people?<\/p>\n
A: We heard these kinds of arguments at the time when civil rights legislation was first considered in the 50s and 60s. Anyone who doesn\u2019t get the advance in life that they thought they would\u2019ve had or are entitled to will be induced to blame it on the advance of Blacks who are being helped by anti-discrimination legislation. The great strength of this country was presumed to be that we could bring together people of different races and religions and national origins that could function with one another as human beings. We have made some measure of progress but the danger is that this pushback against it now, this attempt to reverse it \u2026 is designed to do the exact opposite, to exacerbate tensions, to exacerbate divisions because some politicians have seen great ability to gain influence and power for themselves as a result of it. We\u2019re certainly right now going backwards in a hurry.<\/p>\n
Q: You met Nelson Mandala in South Africa: What do you make of White South Africans being allowed to enter the U.S. as refugees?<\/p>\n
A: It brings to mind most readily George Orwell\u2019s 1984 \u2014 just the world is upside down. There is no discrimination against Whites in South America. There\u2019s a big crime problem in South Africa and whites as well as blacks are victimized by that. South Africa has more than its share of problems. I think that anyone who\u2019s read and been alive and functioned during this period of time knows this, and this is political grandstanding by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
William B. Gould IV Profile
Age: 89
Education: Bachelor\u2019s degree from University of Rhode Island; Law degree from Cornell Law school
Employment: professor emeritus, author
Residence: Stanford
Early life: Born in Boston, grew up in New Jersey
Family: Married since 1963, three sons, four grandsons and a granddaughter<\/p>\n
Five things about William Gould:<\/p>\n
1. A passionate Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics fan since 1946
2. Loves jazz
3. Used to hit fly balls with his students
4. Likes going to baseball games
5. Favorite place in California is Paso Robles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"William Gould, one of the nation\u2019s leading experts on employment, sees artificial intelligence as a \u201clocomotive coming down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2080,184,387,7,8,400,15,2306,1286,181,23,2581,2582,100,195,13,88,90,89,198,2280,200,202,493,23192,1970,1968,2718],"class_list":["post-295200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bay-area","tag-business","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-california-politics","tag-education","tag-higher-education","tag-jobs","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-national-news","tag-national-politics","tag-news","tag-palo-alto","tag-politics","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-silicon-valley","tag-south-bay","tag-stanford","tag-stanford-university","tag-sv-chat","tag-technology","tag-work","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}