Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley—Making AI Serve Us All

Microsoft chief technology officer Scott offers a hopeful but not wholly convincing vision of how artificial intelligence might rescue America’s rust belt. Objecting to what he sees as one-sided characterizations of AI, as either all good or all bad, Scott aims for a clear-eyed assessment of its risks and benefits. He begins in his hometown of Gladys, Va., explaining how the local economy has been damaged by the disappearance of traditional, manual labor–reliant industries such as textile manufacturing and tobacco cultivation. What follows is a meandering look at AI’s potential to revitalize rural economies, illustrated with snapshots of new and evolving businesses outside tech hubs. Scott interviews, among other people, a lumber company manager who believes robotics will supplement, not supplant, his employees’ ability to do a “rough and dirty job,” and thereby prolong their careers. Scott makes a strong case that, with improved broadband access and tax incentives, AI-driven manufacturing enterprises could bloom throughout the heartland. His confidence that workers displaced by automation can be “re-skilled” into AI-related jobs is less persuasive, however, given the paucity of supporting details. Scott offers some appealing individual tales of economic revival, but his optimism never quite coheres into a clear argument for how American employment can be salvaged on a large scale. (Apr.)