I am a member of a national administrative professionals organisation. That doesn’t mean much right now for me, other than I get a discount on the courses they offer! I signed up because I feel very undervalued and underutilised in my current admin position, and I wanted to both level up my skills and meet other admins through their message boards.
That sentence leaves a lot to unpack already, but I am going to dive into something that I think is more insidious in this profession – and probably in many other office support positions that does not receive its fair share of discussion in my opinion.
The obsession with AI to help make my job easier and increase my productivity.
Okay.
Before we get too far into this, please note that I know that increased reliance on technology will not save us from all of our current ills – the rise of the far right and facism, environmental collapse, racism, over-policing, etc. I also know that capitalism is one of those ills. This is how I come at this topic.
AI claims to boost productivity, but to what end and to whose benefit? My productivity might be increased, but will I get a raise to match these new efficiencies or skills? Unlikely. Will I get more time off or shorter work days? Also unlikely! I will probably get assigned more work. In my experience, that’s what usually happens when you increase your personal productivity.
The articles I read about how this tech will improve my job as an admin did not discuss my work-life balance, my mental well-being, or my ability to be a free human person and contribute positively to my community. All benefits were task based, and did not further elaborate on how AI would accomplish any of these benefits. It is still up to me to learn all of these systems, either without support from my employer or forced to by my employer.
This quote in a LinkedIn article is what scares me most:
People will not be replaced by AI, but people who don’t use AI will be replaced by people that use AI.
- Tim Ringo, “one of our best trainers & world’s most influential HR thinkers Tim Ringo, Chartered FCIPD” (source)
This author then went on to promote the (expensive) courses his company offers for admin professionals. Thanks and go f*ck yourself.
I see a lot of science-based articles talking about the environmental impact of AI – carbon emissions, water use, land use and more. But I couldn’t find many articles by office workers who are pushing back against this technology. And the downsides discussed in articles I could find found were only the theoretical musings of whether AI would replace admin professionals in the future – which I think unlikely, given the current state of AI
I consider it a downside in that one day I will be forced by my employer to adopt AI, without any critical analysis their end about the environmental and human costs of AI and will lose my job for disrupting the normal and expected wave of the future.
Honestly, I would love to lose my job to AI if capitalism was abolished in the same breath and I didn’t have to work to survive in this world.
I found many articles – like the one I quoted above – written by folks who have a stake in the game somehow. Organisations who offer classes to increase employee skills using a variety of AI programs, HR managers who want to somehow warn and “empower” people to learn and use this technology to the benefit of their employers, I mean themselves! 😉
I know the “algorithm” does me a disservice, and the articles I am looking for won’t rank very high. “Administrative professionals push back against the forced creep of AI into their roles and workspaces.” Yeah, that’s unlikely to be prioritised.
Labour has traditionally been undervalued by tech companies, women’s labour even more so. And admin roles are still largely held by women (although that trend is changing). It appears from all that I have been reading, that our voice continues to be lost or ignored. Organised labour movement (unions) are not moving fast enough to counter all of the potential problems that will be caused by AI for workers (and humans in general) as more companies clamour to adopt it.
So I am on the lookout first for some radical admin assistants that I can bounce ideas off of, share the load of information gathering, and support each other when we need to push back against our employers for their enthusiastic support for AI adoption against our interests.
Where are my anti-capitalist, environmentally minded admins at?
Not Ladylike Community 