Throughout human history mankind has used tools to make living easier. This began with stone tools, and has evolved over the centuries to computers, artificial intelligence, and robotics. During the industrial revolution machines displaced workers. Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University stated in 2012:
Since the dawn of the industrial age, a recurrent fear has been that technological change will spawn mass unemployment. Neoclassical economists predicted that this would not happen, because people would find other jobs, albeit possibly after a long period of painful adjustment. By and large, that prediction has proven to be correct.
That is the official line on technological unemployment. Looms took the place of weavers, agricultural jobs that required teams of horses, and men, can today be done by one man driving one machine. On a more local level we see this every time we go into a grocery store and see the self-checkout lanes.
About that long period of painful adjustment Rogoff talked about, Moshe Y. Vardi, a professor of Computer Science at Rice University said,
They are definitely right about the long period of painful adjustment! The aftermath of the Industrial Revolution involved two major Communist revolutions, whose death toll approaches 100 million. The stabilizing influence of the modern social welfare state emerged only after World War II, nearly 200 years on from the 18th-century beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.
The technological advances we are experiencing now, and coming in the near future will likely make the job losses of the Industrial Revolution look minuscule in comparison. Artificial intelligence, 3-D printing, robotics, and automation will change society as we know it (that is if we survive climate change, but that is another diary).
Kurt Vonnegut touched on this theme in his first novel, Player Piano, published in 1952. The novel is prescient, written 67 years ago—and it touches on themes happening today.
“What do you expect?" he said. "For generations they've been built up to worship competition and the market, productivity and economic usefulness, and the envy of their fellow men-and boom! it's all yanked out from under them. They can't participate, can't be useful any more. Their whole culture's been shot to hell.”
Just this week New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated that,
“We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work. We should be excited by that. But the reason we’re not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don’t have a job, you are left to die. And that is, at its core, our problem.”
“We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in. Because not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage.”
I love her vision of the future, it is the vision that Gene Roddenberry had in Star Trek, a world where there was no money, and mankind only worked for the betterment of humanity.
Lily: How much did this thing cost?
Captain Picard: The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century.
Lily: No money? You mean you don’t get paid?
Captain Picard: The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves, and the rest of humanity.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, the great bogeywoman to the right side of the political spectrum, is spot on in her assessment. Losing a job can be the equivalent of death—many Americans today are one or two paychecks away from financial disaster. Without a paycheck you cannot pay rent, your car payment, and in most cases, you lose your access to health care because our health insurance is often tied to our job. Losing a job can also cause you to lose your self-worth. Imagine working in a job for 30 years, only to be replaced because a machine could do it faster, and cheaper, it has happened, and will continue to happen at a faster pace in the coming years.
We need to start changing the way we think about work, and what we value. Today, someone working in finance can achieve a higher salary than someone who actually produces something. Men who play children’s games earn more than those who educate our children.
We need to move on to a different system, one where we are not bonded to a job for a wage. In the Star Trek universe, it was the invention of the replicator that brought about the social changes that moved them toward a moneyless society. In Player Piano the advent of an automated world turned out to make it a dismal place. We are coming up to a crossroads, we need to decide which path to take—a society where wealth is no longer something to pursue, where everyone is equal, and we all work toward the betterment of society. Or, we go down the path where the haves become a smaller and smaller group, and the rest of us wonder what happened to our usefulness.