Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.

Today we explored the long history of technological disruption from the industrial revolution

to the rise of software engineering and ask whether AI is genuinely different this time.

All while autonomous weapons dissolve accountability for the militaries

using them, and capitalism prevents AI companies from maintaining their ethical aspirations.

For those looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 50 minutes

today include, consider this, confronting capitalism, today explained, on the media, your undivided attention,

and why America?

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections.

Section A, Labor Future, Section B, Warfare, Section C, Surveillance, and Section D, Corporate Power.

But first, a reminder to check out our new show Solved on the Best of Left YouTube channel. We're really proud of the show we're making and think you'll get real value out of it. Plus, you checking it out will help us find new viewers on YouTube. So thanks in advance for all of your views, likes, subscribes, and comments. That's all on the Best of Left YouTube channel linked on the show notes. And now, on to the show. Well, let's start with that. It feels like in the past few weeks, this conversation about AI job loss has bubbled out of the tech world and into the mainstream. I mean, I, for one,

have gotten like a half dozen texts from freaked out friends sending stuff around like,

what's going on here? Martha, why do you think this is happening right now? I think part of it is that

there legitimately has been an acceleration and what the technology can do over just the last couple of

months. I think there's also a

broader issue, which is that people are just incredibly anxious about the economy right now and where

it's going. If you look at whether people think they're going to lose their job in six months

relative to where the unemployment rate currently is, they're really negative.

And then, of course, when people are piling on saying that we aren't going to have any jobs

in two years, that's not going to help. That does create some anxiety. Kelsey, you have been

covering AI since, you know, since chat GPT was a twinkle in Sam Altman's eye.

Can you explain to us some specific examples of what these models can do now that they

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