“Technology is great…when it works.”

Or so author Bobby Darnell famously said in 2014, a refrain repeated over and over since then.

Surely, there’s great intent in bringing automation and artificial intelligence (AI) into workplaces of all kinds. Whether it’s a meatpacking plant or a newsroom, for example, we all strive to lift the exhausting grunt work off the shoulders of people who might otherwise spend their time on work of higher skill, value and reward.

Even if the tech works just as intended, though, it doesn’t always work in perfect harmony with people. And while we at Meatingplace do not compare our labor with that of workers in a meatpacking plant, we’re also beginning to feel the discomfort of AI in our environment. The type of discomfort expressed in a “What the … ?” and then a “Where are we going with this?”

Wherever ChatGPT is going, it’s going fast. The Microsoft-backed, AI-based software can, with essentially whatever instructions are entered, quickly scour the ever-expanding online universe of human language and text and, for just one example, instantaneously “write” a news article. Want it to “write” a HACCP program? It can.

The question is, “How well?”

I can’t speak to how well the Chat bot can generate a HACCP program, but we’ve tried its hand at writing different types of news articles and can say that it’s…well, not that bad? Let’s say we’re not worried about our jobs, yet, but surely the technology will improve over time and at least stir more conversations about how we might use or interact with it.

Increasingly, humans and machines with human-like capabilities are working together in meat plants, too. And there, like here in the publishing realm, the results haven’t always been optimal. Robotics experts are still scratching their heads in efforts to replicate the skill of a human’s hands in deboning a chicken, or in accounting for the heterogenous nature of a beef carcass, to achieve optimal yields.

Smartwatches can track the motion of workers’ cutting movements, for example, with the intent of identifying those that are most hazardous and improving ergonomics to better keep them safe and perform at a high level. But again, intent is a different thing than outcome. Do such devices make workers feel safer, or like they’re just being watched and set up for failure?

These are uncomfortable conversations, growing more so as the technologies get even more advanced. And those touting and selling the benefits of such technologies need to be as forthright in acknowledging and addressing their downsides, which generally amount to a collective compromise on human control.

That’s to say nothing of human artform, craft and emotion. So, how much of ourselves are we willing to give up? How much are we willing to trust AI to do the work well, and without intrusions of personal and professional privacy?

The transition from human to robot in the workplace can surely solve problems, but it presents new ones as well. If it simply eliminates a job, without then elevating the use and integrity of humans, the value proposition is negligible.

Technology is great, unless it doesn’t work well with others. As Apple founder Steve Jobs once said, “It’s not a faith in technology. It’s faith in people.”

Editor's note: This article ran as the Editorial in the March print issue of Meatingplace.

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