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  "title": "Perplexity CEO's Interaction with Striking New York Times Workers Does Not Reflect Well on the AI Industry",
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              "plaintext": "The CEO of AI start-up Perplexity recently got a fair amount of attention for offering to replace the labour of striking New York Times workers. Without weighing on in the specifics of the NYT Tech Workers strike itself, I wanted to highlight the general “shape” of this interaction — in particular, how the “AI Industry” is positioning itself relative to labour interest groups, and how this story speaks to broader concerns about labour substitution by AI."
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              "plaintext": "Anyone who makes a salary relies on some degree of labour leverage. In other words, behind every contract is some non-zero bargaining power (this is tautological, to some degree). While historically, conservatives often have had a less favourable view of unions (see e.g. Pew polling in the US), people who may not support unions in general but still rely on a salary or contracts still depend on their own individual labour leverage. Some professions may have also have individual members who are “anti-union” or “anti-strike”, but still have professional organizations that create leverage on their behalf through e.g. licensing."
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  "description": "The idea that data-dependent AI systems are ready and willing to crush any leverage from knowledge workers is unlikely to make the AI industry look good to the public.",
  "publishedAt": "2024-11-09T00:00:00.000Z"
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