A recent article in the Times of India reminded me a long-held fear I’ve had about a future with robots doing everything for us (as we doing nothing). My friends are somewhat sick of hearing me harp on this, so I wanted to explain myself somewhat.
The debate has raged for most of my lifetime. It certainly had currency in my dad’s lifetime, what with H.G. Wells and the like. And the same conclusion is reached every time: The replacement of humans by robots in inevitable.
The follow-on question is equally inevitable: “What then will happen to the displaced humans?” Lacking overall economic growth, or even WITH growth, what will the non-robots (formerly known as human) people do? The utopia envisioned by those promoting robots – that is, a world where humans need only wait around to be serviced by a robot – assumes a natural ability on the part of human beings to fill the increasing amounts of leisure time with, well, leisure. Leisure, to be clear, that is somehow ennobling of the human spirit. Not playing video games all day. Not playing golf every day. And certainly not helping those in need. Let the robots do it! I just don’t get it.
My position is that leisure is only appreciated (valued) in the context of the work-leisure-work-leisure cycle of existence. What will happen when it is all leisure all the time? How can leisure be valued? I value warmth in the context of cold-warmth-cold-warmth. If it is all-warmth-all-the-time, how can I value warmth?
The hope, I guess, is that we will fill our time with ennobling pursuits that solve other problems, like say cancer. But won’t that “pursuit” (otherwise known to me as work) become roboticised somehow?
You might answer, “Well, Joe, the smarts behind such robotics must be thought-through by humans, and that is where humans will remain relevant.”
I can see that. But is that enough “pursuit” for the millions surely to be displaced by robots? Think here of the “brain surgeons” who are being displaced by the demise of Holden in South Australia. Will they move naturally into higher order pursuits like programming robots? The answer is of course no. They are among the permanently unemployed. The new “leisure class” if you will.
Could they move into the production line of a New Holden, one that makes robots? The answer, sadly, is no. Just look at how cars are made today – by robots of course.
Is it any wonder that the auto industry hasn’t suffered a major worker’s strike in several years? The threat looms large, like the Sword of Damocles, that the strikers will just get replaced by … robots.
Marx must be either turning in his grave or actually trying to get out. His entire premise what that labor must be valued as a capital good. But that assumes a certain scarcity. As labor becomes decidedly not-scarce, what would Marx do?
Adelaide, my most recent hometown, recently suffered a bus driver strike. I am not sure how it was resolved, but as I read about autonomous vehicles coming on the scene, can self-driving buses be too far behind?
What the promise of robots really boils down to is this: a rapidly increasing number of permanently unemployed and unemployable people. Non-robots. One only has to look at the number of American workers not now in the workforce – 94,000,000!
My belief is that man needs to work, to build, to be productive. The “new normal” of 1, 2 or 3% growth simply won’t keep up with basic population growth, and so we will have increasing numbers of permanently unproductive non-robots.
“How, then, do you employ the unemployable?” you might ask. It is unanswerable. Absent an innate ability to pursue leisure for its intrinsic worth, the unemployable will stew. And stewing has anarchy as its inevitable outcome. Or a Hillary Clinton or a Nicolas Maduro. Or a Bernie Sanders. Or a Donald Trump*. Or so I think.
For my part, as a “highly trained mental health professional” (tongue in cheek here), I shall focus on helping those confronted by leisure-without-end.
In the good old days (about two weeks ago) that was a class of people known as the “newly retired.” It was easy to work with them, to help them cultivate long-forgotten passions, and to help them channel energy appropriately. Moreover, they had wealth – or some semblance of it and could afford to stay unemployed to the end of their days.
But these were clients who had naturally progressed to such a point in their lives. The “unnatural” displacement is something that the great life-cycle theorists never envisioned.
Never.
I’ll have more to say on this topic, my new found bone (of which I shall never let go). Not even if a robot wants my bone.
* Full disclosure: I will be voting for Trump, not because he’s the best, but because he’s the least bad of the worst. I also happen to agree with him that America has given away far too much in extraordinarily sweet trade deals over the years. This will kill Walmart, to be sure, and I doubt that Mexico will be very happy about it, but it remains to be seen. I also believe that Trump will be able to manage the bureaucracy that has sclerotized my country for far too long. Take for example what the EPA has done to Wyoming and its coal fields. 18,000 men are out of work with absolutely nothing to do. Nowhere to go. The coal fields are being shut down everywhere. And robots had nothing to do with it. Good old fashioned fanaticism did that. Unless you count the windmills.
