The Claremont Colleges, as a conglomerate of liberal arts institutions, have disappointed me in the era of AI. Amid the rapid expansion of AI, the 5Cs have hosted workshops and dinners promoting the usage of AI without due caution.
Last semester, the Athenaeum held an event called “Navigating the AI-Driven Future: Innovation, Product Evolution, and the Future of Work,” where the hosts talked about “the practical ways companies like HP are integrating AI to design smarter products and streamline remote and hybrid work environments.”
It’s not up for dispute, AI is an up-and-coming industry and is becoming an even greater part of our lives every day. And there’s a reason why: because we use it, and because it is profitable.
That’s the problem: It’s too profitable.
Every AI development is a new avenue for the economically invested billionaire’s profit. The increasing profit of billionaires is inherent in further abuse and devaluation of the working class.
For example, Carl’s Jr. is sporting AI-powered drive-thrus, a marked step towards cutting out the worker and automating jobs rather than paying livable wages to real people (which is doable if we would stop letting companies jack up their expectations for profit margins). AI bots have become normalized in customer support sectors. Cars are even driving themselves and undermining workers in the ride-sharing industry.
AI replacement of workers is already a reality, and it will only get worse from here. The description of the Athenaeum event mentions “navigating ethical considerations,” yet there is nothing ethical about replacing workers with AI. Using AI to “streamline” labor worsens the existing climate of declining available positions that enable an economically reasonable quality of life for the working class, signified by “The Great Resignation.”
It is important to note that the profit of billionaires directly translates to expenses for the rest of us. Every dollar that climbs the ladder into the bank account of billionaires will not “trickle down.” Billionaires become billionaires because they hoard their wealth. The interests of billionaires are not in the interest of anyone else, so when a man in a suit comes from a company like HP with a $32.51 billion valuation, let’s not fall for their talk about replacing people with robots “ethically.”
Millions of people every day are complacent in, or are even proud to use, AI engines. This presents a disappointing contrast between people’s tendency to so enthusiastically virtue-signal against billionaires versus what they are actually willing to do. AI is so convenient that we can’t escape it, and most people don’t bother to try, simply because boycotting AI would mean choosing inconvenience.
Sacrificing values has proven to be much easier than acting in alignment with them.
The AI issue, the likelihood of AI expanding and being used against the interests of the working class, starts with us. It starts with and is enabled by AI usage on an individual level. Usage of engines like ChatGPT shows AI developers and billionaires that we are more than willing to forfeit our abilities to learn new concepts, form our own thoughts and produce original work.
Considering the unethical effects that AI has had and will continue to have on the job market and the environment, we should not be compliant with promoting AI usage to any population in any context. Liberals and conservatives both agree that creating more jobs is a priority. Most of us are in agreement over something for once, yet we are using the services of (and thereby supporting) AI companies that are actively working to reduce human labor positions.
I don’t know anyone who is happy to speak to a robot in place of a real, human worker. But I know tons of people who regularly visit ChatGPT. Why use a product that is quite literally making a direct contribution to the downfall of society, to anyone outside of the top .01%?
I call on the 5Cs to acknowledge the dangers of AI and provide a well-rounded perspective on the industry for its students, especially such students who rampantly use AI. Each school has a strong platform, which they have so far used to promote AI. Despite the 5Cs painting themselves as a beacon of social responsibility, the schools have hypocritically neglected to criticize the AI issue. Beyond some HMC series criticizing AI as antithetical to writing and learning, there have been no concerted efforts critical of the harmful societal effects of AI at the 5Cs.
In the meantime, students will continue to use AI mindlessly with varying levels of awareness of its potential for harm. Students suffer from the pressure of college. The stakes are higher, and the pressure of producing perfection in college allows the convenience of AI to intervene seamlessly. As another sign of our consumer negligence and obsession with short-term gratification, AI has become the new, fun way to create yet another self-inflicted crisis.
Will anyone ever organize with enough strength to convince the people who avoid accountability, the people who say, “Oh, but I just use it to save time,” that they, too, are a part of the grand problem?
Celeste Cariker PZ ’28 is terrified of robots with their own thoughts, late-stage capitalism and public speaking (which is why she writes articles instead).
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