Artificial intelligence (AI) is already transforming our lives and the jobs that are available, in many ways. As Kevin Maney points out in his article, “How Artificial Intelligence and Robots Will Radically Transform the Economy” (Maney), many devices that have been used for decades are forms of AI. His favorite example is the self-service gas pump. So far as more current technologies that have already taken jobs go, we can mention self-service check-out lines in supermarkets; robots replacing warehouse workers for Amazon and other companies; and devices such as Alexa that can book airline flights and make appointments for us, among much else. This paper will argue that we should accept that AI is going to transform the economy radically. It is going to happen anyway, after all, and so we should—as Maney suggests—find ways to make the best of it. There are three ways we can do this, all mentioned in some way or other by Maney. First, he notes that we can focus on the jobs that AI produces, rather than become depressed about jobs it takes away. Another way is to utilize the new technologies, including AI, to educate our citizens in such a way as to prepare them for existing jobs, or jobs that will be created by AI. Finally, the primary suggestion of the paper is that all countries that can afford to do so should adopt the Japanese system of ensuring nearly full employment.
Gas pumping jobs were arguably never that valuable, to begin with. This is not to denigrate those who had (or have) such jobs. It is only to point out that more rewarding and more profitable jobs were probably available then and are definitely available now. One of the most important points Maney makes is that there are millions of unemployed people in the United States and also millions of jobs that need to be filled. AI can help match the former with the latter in more sophisticated and effective ways than have ever been available in the past. For example, he points out that “In 1970, 14 percent of men held four-year college degrees, and 8 percent of women did. By 2015, that was up to 32 percent of men and women” (Maney). Some part of this change, however small, was due to the unavailability of gas pumping jobs.
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Another central point is that AI will, or in some cases already has, made available unique educational opportunities. Taking online courses is typically less expensive, and it certainly allows for greater flexibility, than traditional forms of higher education. AI can play a role here, as Maney notes, by allowing a person’s educational experience to be tailored to his or her needs. People learn in different ways and at different paces and AI is, or will be, superior to any other method in finding out what those ways are—just as it can already digest and assimilate information contained in medical records and associated documents much faster than any physician or nurse. There are already dozens or hundreds of websites that help the unemployed to find work. In the future, AI will likely be available to act as a helpful interface in this process as it will for providing the most effective education possible.
Even those, like Maney, who are overall optimistic about the effect that AI will eventually have on the economy and the unemployment rate cannot deny, however, that fewer jobs are going to be available overall. Furthermore, those jobs that will be available will mostly require the sort of quality education that is at present, and for the foreseeable future, unavailable to many people, especially minorities. It is at least arguable that something radical is going to have to be done if widespread unemployment is not to result from the eventually full-blown emergence of AI. Maney devotes a single sentence in his article to the sort of radical solution that I have in mind. He writes that “There are smart, seemingly rational people who believe the U.S. should institute a ‘guaranteed basic income’ so that the masses who won’t be able to find work can avoid depredation” (Maney). His use of the phrase “seemingly rational” signals his awareness of the radical nature of the proposal. However, the sort of system he alludes to need not consist of a large welfare-based system. Japan has close to full employment. The way that it manages this incredible feat is basically that it does not fire people when a company ceases to exist, or when a new technology takes over jobs once performed by people—instead it finds new things for these people to do. This often involves the creation of jobs specifically for such people. This system seems to work for Japan. Of course, especially in the U.S., there will be many who are skeptical or even regard the idea as socialist or communist in nature. However, it is difficult to criticize a model that ensures full, or nearly full, employment. Perhaps the Japanese do not fully maximize profitability by using the model. Nevertheless, it is at least arguable that the maximization of profitability should not be our only goal, even where economic matters are concerned. The welfare of people is surely a worthy goal as well. The dramatic changes that AI is going to make to the economy will necessarily require dramatic solutions. A system of full employment is a promising way of supplying a solution.
- Maney, Kevin. “How Artificial Intelligence and Robots Will Radically Transform the Economy.” Newsweek, 30 November 2016. Print.
