‍ ‍AI did not invent the habit of treating workers as expendable. Fights over automation, water, and taxation reveal how much of that habit we are willing to carry into the future.

Labor Day was created to honor the people whose work produced American prosperity. It is an awkward holiday for an economy that has become increasingly sophisticated at obtaining work without accepting the obligations once attached to employment.

Labor economist Paul Osterman estimates that more than one in three American workers occupies what he calls a “disposable” job. His definition includes contractors, organizational freelancers and employees whose positions offer little security or opportunity for advancement. These are not necessarily short-term workers. Some perform essential work for years while remaining outside the durable relationships through which employers traditionally provided benefits, training and career prospects

Every field eventually reaches a moment when one of its founding figures begins speaking in a different register. Not necessarily a different idea. A different tone.

Recently, the usability pioneer Jakob Nielsen published a long reflection on AI and the future of UX work. On the surface, it reads like a technical forecast. AI coding is accelerating. Design tools are improving. Exponential scaling will smooth out today’s weaknesses. The familiar workflow of usability engineering (i.e., manual testing, heuristic evaluation, iterative design) may soon be automated away.