Best of Think : A.I. is coming for knowledge workers

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8 • 861 Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Relying on a dictionary or a library of materials to create something new is really just a centuries-old version of what A.I. does today. Dennis Yi Tenen, associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss why we shouldn’t be afraid that A.I. is coming for jobs, how we’ve always turned to outside sources to help generate original works, and how the real conversation should be about who’s labor is valuable. His book is “Literary Theory for Robots: How Computers Learned to Write.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	The 2024 election was a lot. And now that we're past it, you might be avoiding political news
0:07.8	altogether, or you might want to understand the other side of the aisle, but without poisoning
0:13.4	your algorithm or treading into online territory that feels like an alien planet, you need left, right,
0:19.4	and center. It's your weekly political news check-in
0:22.0	with representatives from both parties,
0:24.2	so you can hear from the other guys
0:26.2	in a way that helps you actually make sense of it.
0:28.7	I'm David Green.
0:29.5	Join me on Left, Right, and Center from KCRW.
0:32.1	New episodes drop every Friday
0:33.8	wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:45.3	Thank you. Friday, wherever you listen to podcasts. The Wall Street Journal ran a headline recently, but I found really scary. It wasn't about an imminent economic collapse or natural disaster. It wasn't even about war or violence. It was this.
0:57.0	AI is starting to threaten white-collar jobs.
1:00.0	Few industries are immune.
1:03.0	From KERA in Dallas, this is Think.
1:06.0	I'm Chris Boyd.
1:07.0	My panic didn't last long, but it wasn't totally unjustified.
1:11.0	I mean, could Siri, our Alexis Sunday host an interview show?
1:14.6	So my guest book crossed my desk at a moment when I was eager to understand how the growing capacity of artificial intelligence might change the nature of work.
1:23.5	And it helped me to realize there will be an effect on how jobs get done, by whom and for how much money,
1:29.5	but also that so-called knowledge workers have been leaning on technology to boost our performance for centuries.
1:36.3	Dennis Yeh Tennon is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.
	...

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