I like Veblen’s answer best.
Absolutely, the result would be a huge productivity boost! First note, though, that the original industrial revolution didn’t really start increasing workers’ wages until organized labor and concerted political efforts forced lots of progressive policies into law.
Second, note the obvious reducto: someday we could conceivably end up in a world where someone has invented an AI that can do everything an IQ 150 human can do, and put it in a wide range of robot designs, and they only cost at most a few hundred dollars each because the software is freely available and the robots are made by robots. In that world, almost no one would have much incentive to hire humans to do anything at anything approaching a living wage. Except maybe as a status “look at me I’m rich enough to hire real people” kind of thing? Anyway, unless you believe it is literally impossible for such an invention to exist, then you have to concede that somewhere between here and there is a turning point where the economy stops finding new uses for displaced workers.
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In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
We’ve often been told to keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed, they’ve streamlined the job
And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed
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How much food (and what kinds) do you think the average person can grow ‘in their home’?
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Both grim scenarios.
Uber owns all the cars, and the people votes so that the taxes paid by Uber are fair and enough (along with that paid by others) to support the society.
In the future this will mean some form of UBI, and right now free education, healthcare and a decent public housing program.
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Has anyone actually clicked through to read the original OECD study? I did, and what I found is that they have never heard of Business Process Reengineering (BPE). They reach their 66 million figure by looking at the tasks that the jobs consist of, and if there are enough “automatable” tasks (cutoff seems to be 70%), then they regard the job as automatable, if not then not.
But this isn’t how the real world works. Say I’m the manager of a division and Bob the AI guy comes to me saying that they can automate 30% of the tasks of each of my workers. According to the OECD study, this means that those jobs are unlikely to be automated. So, what do I do? Tell Bob to go away because he can’t completely automate my workers’ jobs? Only if I’m an idiot. If, however, I am not an idiot, then I rearrange tasks so that the 30% that are automatable (today) are automated, and the rest continue to be done by my workers. But, I don’t need as many people as I used to… so I let 30% of them go, dramatically increase my profitability, and get a massive bonus.
There are, of course, other possibilities: for example, I could use the extra workers to do something else or increase quality. But if there was a demand for either, I probably could / should have done it before. More likely is that I’ll fire the 30% and take the massive bonus.
Bottom line: that 66 million figure is vastly underestimated. The McKinsey (40-50% of tasks automatable with today’s AI technology) study is much more methodologically sound.
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I think on average, if you max everything out (gardens and roofs) we’ll come close to self sufficient but not with burgers and fries, more like leafy greens and vegetables. The point was to not have to work 40 hr per week if you can find a different balance by leveraging modern tech.
Nah. It won’t come to this. They’ll kill us first.
This is exactly my point: resisting technology is not the key to reducing inequality, increasing worker empowerment is.
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Sure, there is a ton of capital floating around. This is what happens when you connect venal people to a money faucet. And some of this is being thrown at “automation”, but that’s just because we’re riding on the crest of a wave of hype, of people who believe this is easily achieved, and so they are willing to throw their money in because they expect a huge payoff soon.
The huge payoff is not coming soon, however, because automation is fucking hard. As soon as this becomes obvious (i.e., the actual risk is apparent ahead of the hype), this capital will immediately start drying up. Tesla is looking like a promising victim of this game. And while you mention Apple: their effort at producing an “iCar” also fell apart, and was quietly scuttled, because even Apple isn’t willing to blow its cash on such a huge risk.
I’d prefer that as well, but I think that’s largely up to haves to decide, and they have a poor track record.
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