Commentary: What if AI retraining is just a comforting lie?

TOKYO: No one knows whether artificial intelligence will trigger a white-collar jobpocalypse. The loudest warnings still come from people building and selling the technology, whose predictions often double as hype-mongering or cover for unrelated cost-cutting with investor-friendly language. Think-tank and analyst forecasts are no less vertiginous. The honest answer is that current data gaps leave us all guessing. But we do know the script that’s already creeping up as displacement begins to trickle: “retraining”, “upskilling” and the hollow language used to make dislocation politically palatable. We cannot allow it to become the next comforting lie, or a way to sell…