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What happens when AI starts improving itself, generation after generation, with no human in the loop? RSI could compound capability faster than we can test or govern it. A look at where the technology actually stands, and why regulation, not good intentions, is the only real safeguard.

Anyone who has called a restaurant to book a table or to tell them you’re running late knows the experience. It can be particularly frustrating to troubleshoot a product that arrived broken from a company where AI use is the dominant means for service. Chances are, you didn’t speak to a person. You talked to a chatbot — and if you tried to reach a human, you may have found it nearly impossible.

Customer service has been in structural decline for decades — offshoring, phone trees, bots — but generative AI is accelerating the trajectory faster than anyone anticipated. With up to 80 percent of the sector’s 2.8 million U.S. jobs candidates for automation, the question is no longer whether AI will dominate customer service. It’s who gets left behind when it does.

When Edmund Cartwright’s power loom decimated 900,000 weaving jobs over four decades, it was considered history’s most catastrophic labor disruption. AI is on pace to dwarf that figure — and do it in years, not generations. A close look at the Luddites reveals why this time, the parallel only takes us so far.