30 years on the Farm, in a number of roles. My role is in just as much jeopardy as anyone else’s, and I don’t claim to like that. But all of this change isn’t about State Farm reducing expenses, or eliminating jobs, or carrying out a purge or vendetta. It’s not about claim reps or underwriters, or agents, or call center reps. All these issues are merely symptoms of the larger condition. State Farm is trying to figure out how to move forward in a fundamentally changed world. Jobs that have been done by people will quickly be done by robots or AI. We’re in for decades of stagnant wages and a massive accumulation of wealth by the very few. It happened when industrialization was brand new in the late 18th and early 19th Century, and again when an agrarian economy was supplanted by an industrial one in the early 20th Century. Those resulted in wars, and political/social upheaval. This will as well.
We’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that we’ve replaced ourselves with machines. Then, we’re going to be forced to figure out how to distribute wealth and resources, since very few people will actually be personally producing anything, and will have earned nothing by traditional standards.
This is not a sketchy future prediction because it’s already happening.
Will State Farm survive the change? Who knows? In the short term, they seem be trying to treat people AS machines, which will never fly. But we can know for certain that operating as though it’s 1985 will not work. Unionize? Can’t fix a 21st Century problem with a 19th Century solution. The jobs and careers many of us started in the 80’s, or even the 70’s.....those are gone and nothing can bring them back.