Goldman Sachs wants their customers to know that they should be very excited about generative AI — because generative AI tools could let ’em fire human workers and replace them with AI en masse. Hooray! “The recent emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) raises whether we are on the brink of a rapid acceleration in task automation that will drive labor cost savings and raise productivity,” reads a new Goldman Sachs economic report, published over the weekend. “Despite significant uncertainty around the potential of generative AI,” it continues, “its ability to generate content that is indistinguishable from human-created output and to break down communication barriers between humans and machines reflects a major advancement with potentially large macroeconomic effects.” Translation? While the future of generative AI is still up in the air, right now, its output is already comparable, in the bank’s eyes, to the output of enormously costly human labor. Replace humans with machines, and you no longer have to pay for livelihoods — just subscription fees. Perhaps most chillingly, the Goldman Sachs report describes generative AI as a “disruption” to the “labor market.” And sure, it may well be, but the term “disruption” is usually used to describe significant changes within certain industries, particularly when something new replaces and upends something old. Goldman Sachs is seemingly speaking to the concept of human jobs altogether — a presumably less manageable workforce shift. In other words, a significant disruption indeed, and one that will cause a significant amount of pain for…Goldman Sachs Salivates at AI’s Potential to Mass Fire Workers