Things we should own together Artificial Intelligence

John Alt

If we project the logical trajectory of artificial intelligence (AI) it seems to be unavoidable that it must eventually be owned by all of us together as a national society. It is simply unworkable for this particular technology to be privately owned by a few high-tech corporations whose sole mission is to generate financial profits. It doesn’t “work” in the same way it doesn’t work to lift yourself off the ground by pulling on your ears: It defies the force of economic gravity which says quite simply (and it’s embarrassing to state a truism as if it were an insight):

In a consumer-driven economy, a business can only make a profit manufacturing goods and services if there are CUSTOMERS willing and able to purchase those goods and services. And the existence of those customers depends on the existence of employment positions enabling them to earn the dollars necessary to BE customers.

This seems astonishingly simple, so it is even more astonishing that a major player in America’s market economy has a business model to eliminate its customers! And even more jaw-dropping to watch America’s national leaders and lawmakers line up in breathless excitement to help make it happen.

If indeed (as the AI industry itself is now beginning to acknowledge) some very large portion of the employment positions in our economy — physical labour, mental calculation, technical analysis, strategic decision-making, creative problem-solving, aesthetic invention — are now to be assigned to robotic intelligence agents, then some very large portion of OURSELVES will suddenly have no income. And if — for lack of wage-earning employment — some very large portion of all of us together are unable to buy things, well … the consumer-driven economy will collapse!

How could it not collapse? Even the AI bots, working away to produce all the goods and services that used to be provided by us — even the AI bots will eventually be out of jobs because there will not be enough wage-and-salary-earning customers left to buy the goods and services the AI bots produce. And if the AI bots are out of jobs, then ..

Wait a minute! Has anyone seriously thought this through? Or are we just charging ahead on faith that despite this calculus everything will work itself out — as it always has with previous technological innovations?

AI cannot play human sports, like football, baseball, basketball, soccer, etc.

AI cannot give pedicures and manicures.

AI cannot be trusted to give haircuts.

AI cannot ….

Hmmm. I’m already stuck! Everything else that comes to mind that human beings might find employment doing already can be, or will be accomplishable by an AI bot — including the making of this list! An AI savvy friend did me the favour of confirming this by putting the question to Chat GPT itself. Here is the list of things Mr. “Chat” came up with that AI cannot do:

Jobs Requiring Deep Human Judgment & Ethics

Therapist / Psychologist / Counsellor Ethicist / Moral Philosopher Judge / Juror

Mediator / Conflict Resolution Specialist Creative & Artistic Professions (HumanCentered)

Novelist / Poet at the highest level – (AI can handle romance and pulp fiction) Fine Artist / Conceptual Artist – (AI can handle ad layouts and jingles) Stand-up Comedian / Satirist Art Critic / Cultural Commentator

Jobs Needing Physical Dexterity and Social Intelligence

Nurse / Caregiver for Elderly or Disabled Early Childhood Educator / Preschool Teacher

Host / MC / Spiritual Leader / Priest / Pastor

Skilled trades (e.g. Plumber, Electrician, Carpenter)

Jobs Relying on Trust, Leadership, and Vision

CEO / Entrepreneur (Visionary Leader) Diplomat / International Negotiator Social Worker / Community Organizer Fields Needing Intuition & Discovery Theoretical Physicist / Mathematician (at the edge of knowledge) Inventor / Innovator

Jobs With Legal or Moral Responsibility

Military Commander (High-Level Strategic)

Child Protective Services Investigator

Whistle-blower / Investigative Journalist Other Areas Where Humans Remain Essential

Death Doula / Hospice Worker Philosopher / Existential Thinker Cultural Healer / Traditional Medicine Practitioner

What AI graciously grants to we humans, then, is the opportunity to earn our livings as professional football players, manicurists, psychiatrists, barbers, moral philosophers, judges, Picassos and Tolstoys, priests and spiritual leaders, stand-up comics, art critics, ballerinas, CEOs, diplomats, community organizers, plumbers and electricians, theoretical physicists, military commanders (one-star general minimum), investigative journalists, cultural healers, and “death doulas” (an employment I’d never heard of, but which sounds like we’ll be needing a lot of).

You may notice that this “HUMANHELP WANTED” list, by and large, does not describe employment positions most working-middle class job seekers can qualify to apply for. Nor are many of them positions that, even now, pay a living wage (what’s the going rate for an “Existential Think-er”?).

We are reassured by some specialists (e.g. Tim Wu writing in the New York Times) that this line of alarmist thinking is off base. That AI is not poised to eliminate human employment, but to augment it. For example, an entrylevel lawyer will not be replaced with AI but will be replaced with another entry-level lawyer who knows how to use AI to do even more of what entrylevel lawyers do.

This is an important and useful distinction, but even Mr. Wu admits that making it come true requires the AI entrepreneur-cowboys to intentionally limit their AI bot’s capabilities to the role of “augmenters” — rather than developing their full capabilities to be “replacers.” And which of these two AIbot products do you imagine will generate the most profits for the entrepreneurs, or for the law firms leasing the AI products?

The history of the common good vs corporate imperialism – Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Health Insurance – suggests that what is off base is entertaining the fantasy that big, profit-seeking corporation will pay heed to anything other than maximizing revenues by minimizing expenses. And, if there’s anything that can be defined as an “expense” in the business world it is a human employee.

So, this is why all of us together will eventually have to wrestle ownership of Artificial Intelligence from the geniuses who invented it: We’ll have to do it so we can eliminate the need for “profits” from the calculations of what AI is good for and what it is allowed to do. We can do this together as a nation because, unlike the AI imperialists, we don’t NEED to earn profits with our fiat money investments. We have a completely different agenda:

What we need together – instead of profits – is for those trillions of dollars AI is poised to divert from our pay checks to remain right where they are. And, if you step back and consider it, that’s exactly what our market economy needs as well: It needs to have pay checks in our pockets!

Why the “geniuses” don’t seem to understand this is a genuine mystery.

Source: John Alt Substack, 3 July 2025 https://johnalt.substack.com/p/things-we-should-own-together-2