Sixty years ago, the popular TV show The Jetsons amused audiences by cartooning a futuristic society. The light-hearted show featured a likable family – George, Judy, Jane, and Elroy – along with a host of tentacled gadgets (including the robot maid Rosy) that served to make life easier for the Jetsons. While the gadgets seemed silly at the time, like robotic toothbrushes, haircombers and shavers, there was an underlying appeal to the idea that the less work we have to do, the better our lives are.

The Jetsons was just one of the many family friendly shows that served as pablum for the public – the myth of the happily white American family carried over from the Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best stereotypes of the 1950’s. What it promised was that technology would improve the quality of life in the future while not messing with the social status quo.

Largely ignored at the time were the potential negative effects. The idea that jobs assigned to robots were previously held by poor or lower middle class individuals would have been problematic. I can almost imagine what would go through the mind of a black woman who, while working as a maid in some well-to-do household, catches a glimpse of Rosy on the TV doing a maid’s work.

Today, the threat of job displacement through technology has become a serious issue in the American workforce.

According to the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, AI has caused a shift in the job market: “…the demand for professionals skilled in AI ethics, policy, and governance is growing, as the deployment of AI systems raises questions about bias, privacy, and accountability.”

In other words, we need specialists to not only service the technology, but also to police the trafficking of information, and to make judgments about how, when, and by whom it is accessed.

Thus, besides being highly skilled in technology, this new brand of overseer must also be equipped with keen ethical sensibilities, perhaps even a bit of a moral compass, if he/she is to both monitor information flow and enact necessary interventions. I wonder if, when in doubt, the human overseer will simply defer to the robot, who will then calculate a “moral” solution.

The qualifications for jobs described above will be set at a very high bar. National Fund for Workforce Solutions.org concedes that “not all workers have the means or opportunity to acquire these high-demand skills, potentially leading to increased unemployment rates among impacted workers and exacerbating economic inequalities.”

Most of us are not capable of such high-level computer work. Moreover, I think we are not really interested in going back to school to be trained as such. Despite our tendency to gripe and grumble about our jobs, we would rather work than not.

In many ways, work defines who we are, and affords us a sense of purpose in life.

The characters in the scenarios below are fictional. They are meant to illustrate the impact of AI in the workforce on the average American worker.

Chuck had been a toll taker who worked from inside his little booth at the New York state Thruway entrance for 20 years. Despite the dull nature of his job, he was always friendly and enjoyed informing people who needed directions or who worried about the weather. It’s been a year since he was displaced. Soon his unemployment benefits will run out.

Maria is a single mother. Just over a year ago, she was hired as a cashier in the grocery store. She has just been informed of store cutbacks that will eliminate her position. Sometime later while grocery shopping, she checks out at the machine that now occupies the lane she once attended.

Jimmy is a little man, just 5 feet 3 inches tall, but extraordinarily agile. He had worked as a climber for a tree trimming company, and everybody marveled at his ability to dig in his cleats and leap branch to branch like a monkey. Recently, the company he worked for let him go after buying a new hydraulic lift. Willie now drinks heavily.

I wonder how Chuck, Maria, and Willie get on with their lives. I doubt they will become high level tech administrators.

Pete Howard, a teacher, musician, writer and house painter, lives in Dunkirk.