Profit Over People
It is a recurring theme, isn’t it? Many in business choose profit over people. I was once under the illusion that it was the other way around but time teaches a different lesson:
Most commercial Organisations, when faced with the ability to strip out core cost – operating costs – not the kinds of cool and exciting costs of innovation and creativity, but the kind of cost that cleans the floors or administers HR process, will jump at the chance.
I simply cannot imagine any Organisation that will seriously argue that they must retain headcount, increase cost, simply to ‘do good’. Or ‘be more human’...if I have the opportunity to save money, or increase utility, using AI, I will do so without hesitation (source)
via **[Stephen Downes](<http://Julian Stodd’s Learning Blog, Mar 11, 2026
 Some truth from Julian Stodd: “Our desire to keep people at the centre of our organisations is noble, understandable, but ultimately not borne out by history or experience.” We have always been happy to outsource labour - to machines, to overseas workers, to whatever. “Once labour becomes substitutable, the market will substitute it. Just ask anyone who owns a wheelbarrow.” And few outside labour unions have complained; the people who opine and write and make decisions about such things have been insulated from the consequences and haven’t really cared. Until now. Now it’s the organization itself that can be replaced. Most service organizations exist because there is an information assymetry, writes Stodd. We pay for their services not because we want to but because we have to, and if AI redresses that assymetry, then we can and will stop paying them. Even if the people in question are the people who opine and write and make decisions.
Web: [Direct Link] [This Post] http://www.downes.ca/post/78972/rd>)**