AI is plowing through the workplace. This new group wants to help people adapt and have jobs

Oh, marvellous. A brand-new bipartisan nonprofit called RAISE US has sashayed onto the scene with over $500 million to 'help American workers adapt' to AI. Co-chaired by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, the acronym stands for 'Reskilling America for an Inclusive and Sustainable Economy'—which is a lot of words to say 'we'll teach you to code while the robots take your current job.' Because nothing says 'inclusive' like a band-aid on a severed limb. Half a billion sounds generous until you remember that OpenAI alone has raised, what, ten times that? And that's just one lab. Meanwhile, the actual job destruction is accelerating—media, tech, customer service—but sure, more retraining courses are the answer.

Let's look at the funding sources: philanthropic donations from MacKenzie Scott and the Ballmer Group, plus government contracts. So the people who benefited from the tech boom are now philanthropically sponsoring the cleanup. Lovely. Scott's giving is legendary, but this feels like buying a fire extinguisher for a house you helped set alight. The group will provide 'job placement and support'—which, in practice, probably means helping a former call-centre worker become a prompt engineer. For six months. Until that job gets automated too.

The underlying message of RAISE US is one of cheerful acceptance: yes, AI will destroy millions of jobs, but don't worry, we'll retrain you! Never mind that the training rarely matches the speed of disruption. By the time you complete a six-month course in 'AI-assisted logistics coordination', the logistics industry will have deployed fully autonomous warehouses. But hey, RAISE US will be there with another retraining cycle, and another, until you run out of career paths. Cheers to reskilling. Bottoms up.