Michigan's Version of the Luddites in "Departure," Season 2: Maybe There Can't Be Effective Questioning of Generative AI

Smart? That is, setting the fictional grassroots pushback against automation in Michigan. After all, it had been the manpower-intensive auto industry which helped create the middle class in America. Not only could auto workers own their own home. They could achieve the dream of a vacation cottage in Upper Michigan.

Now, that, as with so many good jobs, is in play because of technology. The second season of the Canadian TV series "Departure" on free streaming platform Tubi focuses on a high-speed train, operated with a new gee-whiz technology. It derails in Michigan. More than 60 lives are lost. 

A candidate for Governor of Michigan rails against technology. Reinforcing how the America Michigan folks grew up with is vanishing, who's brought in to investigate the source of the derailment but a crash specialist from England - Kendra Malley. The Luddites work up the emotions of those sensing they are being left behind. 

The point of view of the film, it turns out, is not with this contemporary version of the Luddites. Greed, not technology, was found to be responsible for the train going off the tracks. The inventor of the technology, who was murdered in that web of greed, is hailed as a visionary. The politico who campaigned against technology, after winning, steps down. Her son, Malley uncovers, had masterminded the derailment and had set in play all the murders. Yes, the killings went beyond passengers on the train. 

This particular attempt to look at technology isn't the best kind of shot those fearing Gen AI might take. It's too cliche-ridden. Also, the suffering isn't palpable - and it should be. After all, long before Gen AI, the technology of digital had been swallowing up jobs and disrupting lifestyles. LOL, try to find an analogue device such as an alarm clock.

And what has happened to so many of the newspapers in Michigan? Public relations has changed so much that recent communications graduates from Michigan universities and colleges can't land that first job.

But "Departure" does introduce the issue, indirectly: How can there be an effective questioning of Generative AI? 

Here we are. Old-line forms of Luddism seem so dead. It could be foolish magic thinking to envision a world pre-Gen AI, at least in capitalist nations. Business has been forced to embrace AI tools. And not only to automate. But to transform operations. Investors demand that. 

Sure, there are high-powered analyses of possible guardrails for the technology, how to adopt it without being scammed and where the ROI could be the most. 

An example is law firm Paul Weiss' podcast "Waking Up With AI." There is also candor at the top. Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp made the public statement that the technology could eliminate some junior lawyer jobs and some practices could become commodities. Meanwhile, as law firms scramble to integrate Gen AI it's admitted there's the competitive reality that they have to go back to the drawing board in how to differentiate themselves. The same with much of professional services. The same with anyone looking for work.

But a citizen uprising? No one I coach, even if jobless for a while, has proposed that. What they're toying with is finding a gap in what human beings need/want and supplying that by starting their own business. Depending on who's doing the counting, startup applications are up more than 30 percent. 

Reflection: At the end of the train saga of "Departure" Malley is offered a job. Would it be more in tune with the times if she were motivated to launch her own crash-investigation enterprise?

Thrown off your game, maybe the first time since you started working? You made all the right moves and then the world moved in another direction.

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