by Sneed Collard, Missoula
Like many, I spend a fair bit of time thinking about AI and its impacts on the world. Much of this time is not by choice.
For several years now, we have been bombarded with messages about how AI will improve the world. Some of these promises are things to which anyone can relate. The most common example has to do with AI helping finding cures for cancer and other medical afflictions. This, of course, is a truly exciting prospect and I can imagine a variety of companies employing AI to improve and/or discover new products and solutions.
However, this is not why most large corporations are so excited about AI. They are excited because AI will allow them to fire human beings and achieve even larger profits. It has already begun. According to a recent CNBC report (Dec. 21, 2025), just a handful of large corporations including Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce have already cited AI’s role in allowing them to fire more than 50,000 workers. These layoffs apparently run the gamut, from high tech to human resource workers. And they are just the tip of the iceberg.
Take web design. I have a good friend who is a highly skilled web designer. Until about a year ago, he was designing websites for a large, well-known retail company. Last fall, I ran into him and was shocked by what he told me. “It’s been six months since I wrote a line of code,” he admitted. “Now, I basically just tell the AI what I want and it comes up with it.” Many of his co-workers, in fact, had already been laid off.
Many of you have no doubt encountered the service-related problems of AI. Just over spring break, a major airline cancelled our child’s flight home with no explanations. We dialed the customer service line to learn that it would be a ninety-minute wait to speak to a real person—but that their brand new, sparkling AI customer service tool was eager and available. As instructed, we gave this AI several tries, only to discover that it totally failed to understand our problem, never mind coming up with a solution.
I admit that I have seen a couple of fun applications of AI, but it is clear that for the average person, the downsides will continue to outweigh positives. Corporations know this and so cloak their AI enthusiasm behind phrases such as “increased efficiency”, “empowerment”, and “improved customer outcomes.” AI has dealt just the latest blow to my own writing career as AI bots scour books, blogs, and other sources to perpetrate perhaps the largest theft of intellectual and artistic property in human history. And for what? To make rich people even richer.
However, we do not have to go along with all of this. We can fight back. How? First of all, by demanding to talk to real people instead of an AI when you have a problem. Next, push government officials to clamp down on companies that are substituting useless AI chatboxes for real customer service people. Finally, and perhaps most important, disengage from giant corporations as much as possible. For both essential and discretionary services, I’ve found that there is usually a smaller, local alternative that is run and managed by real people. Shifting to such businesses not only employs more people, but makes our society more stable—and a heck of a lot more friendly, interesting, and equitable. A world dominated by AI is not a foregone conclusion. Join me in making our voices known, and let’s see what happens.
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