Mr. Arthur Saginian (April 22, letters) rightly notes that the fall of the Roman Empire was far too complex to blame on immigration alone. But in making that argument, he buried his own most provocative point: his suggestion that we invest in robots rather than immigrant labor. Whether he meant it facetiously or not, he stumbled onto one of the defining issues of our time.
The robots and artificial intelligence are not coming — they are already here. Amazon has deployed over a million robots across its global operations. China recently showcased a humanoid robot outrunning humans on a track. Artificial intelligence, the ability to problem-solve and more, is being built into robots.
Here is the irony that Mr. Saginian’s letter inadvertently exposed: Undocumented immigrants are the least threatened by automation. Teaching a robot to stack boxes in an Amazon warehouse is one thing, but teaching a robot to harvest fruits and vegetables in a Ventura County field is another. Those jobs are safe from robots and artificial intelligence today, but white-collar professionals are not. They are highly exposed to job elimination due to artificial intelligence and robotics. For example, Meta (Facebook) recently announced it is laying off 10% of its highly educated and skilled workforce. Anyone who has called customer service recently has probably encountered an artificial intelligence bot.
America, as President Donald Trump has proven, can control its borders in ways unavailable to the Roman Empire, and we have technology Rome could not have imagined. But there is no border we can control to keep out robots and artificial intelligence because that is happening in our own backyard.
Philip Wasserman
Stevenson Ranch