Free traders like to point out that technology likely destroys far more American jobs than globalization, and yet globalization skeptics do not complain when this happens. Furthermore, we like to add, why should individuals whose jobs are offshored be entitled to a better safety net than individuals whose jobs are made redundant by technology? Aside from being absolutely true, free traders like myself engage in these arguments because they bolster the case for free trade by pointing out the logical inconsistency between people’s intuitively positive feelings about technological progress and their intuitively negative feelings about free trade.
But what happens in the future if artificial intelligence means that human-like robots start replacing jobs? When the machine that replaces you has a voice and a name, like Watson, it will feel different than when the machine is a big metal contraption that attaches widget A to widget B. I suspect that the more human-like the technology that replaces human work, the more people will begin to finally heed the arguments of free traders and reconcile their feelings towards technology driven versus globalization driven job destruction. Unfortunately, this won’t be in the direction we want. Instead, people will begin to see technological progress as a “they” who is “taking our jobs”.
Because it is true I don’t think free traders should stop drawing attention to the connection between technology and free trade, but I do worry that one day it will come back to bite us as it makes the popular adoption of techno-phobic* beliefs that much easier.
*We will need a new word that reflects a bias towards favoring humans, sort of like nationalism or nativism except favoring humans instead of favoring one’s nation or it’s natives.
14 comments
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Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 9:22 am
cerebus
Anthropocentric?
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 9:35 am
John Myles White
Why not speciesism? Peter Singer has been using the term for years, albeit in a different context.
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 10:20 am
RickRussellTX
Although “human-like” robots are perhaps centuries away (look at the stuttering mannequins that pass for the latest technology that can’t negotiate stairs or life complex objects :-/), and I doubt “they” will be perceived as a coherent entity for many decades to come, there are a few areas where technology might encroach on human labor soon. Driving vehicles for long haul shipping outside of crowded cities, for example.
The question is, what will be the result of these innovations? If the result is shorter work weeks, longer vacations and greater material wealth at home, I don’t see how the social effects could be negative on net. Our neighbors in Europe already enjoy such benefits as legally enforced vacations and paid holidays, and they’re not unhappy with them.
I thought *Back to the Future* captured this nicely. The future Marty McFly’s family, although they live in a low-class neighborhood described by the police as “nothing but a breeding place for tranks, lobos, and zipheads”, enjoys incomparable wealth surrounded by technology and plenty with fresh food and wall-sized TV screens.
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 10:22 am
RickRussellTX
Sorry that was “lift complex objects”.
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 10:46 am
Lord
When something increases their material well being, it is hard not to see it as good. When it decreases it, it is hard not to see it as bad. This points out the largest problem is not production but distribution, and given how dysfunctional our distribution system is, I have no doubt this will be the case.
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 11:33 am
Don Lloyd
Whether the issue is job ‘losses’ due to offshoring or technology, in virtually all cases a comparable or larger number of domestic jobs are at least temporarily conserved as a company manages to survive to fight another day.
If new technology or sources of labor become available, existing companies that fail to avail themselves of the new possibilities will fall to new entrants that do.
Regards, Don
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Corey Mutter
We’ll have to figure out a distributional model that doesn’t rely on “working for a living”. Maybe having 99% of people on welfare would work. With enough automation, unless something changes the only career option available to most will be “starve”.
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Brett
I doubt it will progress like that. For one thing, most robots wouldn’t look humanoid a la I, Robot – they’d just look like assorted machines.
Based off of what happened 100 years ago with increasing mechanization of the workplace, I suspect we’ll see considerable public pressure to reduce the hours in the work-week, spreading the work around to a larger group of people. So figure 20-hour work-weeks (or shorter), and increasing specialization of various tasks.
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
bob
IF sufficiently general purpose robots are ever developed – a very long time off, IMO – to be able to do essentially any human task, then these machines would need to have self-awareness, consciousness. It follows that to employ them to free ourselves from drudgery would be the moral equivalent of slavery.
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
sardonic_sob
Stuff and nonsense.
Sapience is not required for general purpose robots. Even if it were, we haven’t any idea how to make a sapient machine: you do not get self-awareness, sad as it makes those of us who grew up on Golden Age SF, just from sufficient complexity. It’s way down there on the list of potential problems.
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
David B
I think the primary difference between off-shoring and use of technology is that off-shoring leads to a loss of technical competence.
In automation, someone still has to figure out more productive ways of performing complex tasks. This knowledge has real value and is the main reason that many plastics and other high performance materials companies still do business in the US.
In off shoring or worse, out sourcing this skill set exists in another country or in the case of out sourcing, in another company. The reason that analysts are worried about Apple computer is that all their production is done by third parties overseas. As long as you have a visionary like Mr. Jobs in place at Apple they have a competitive advantage. But with Mr. Jobs gone you need to find a new visionary – and that is as likely to happen at another company as it is at Apple.
This loss of value at companies that have done the most out sourcing is hollowing out their work force. While some still have competent technical people in important positions – there isn’t anyone in the lower ranks to take their place.
Worse for our country – the front line people that have been trained in the nuts-and-bolts of solving problems and making things who will leave these companies to start their own firms will do so in other countries.
If you look at the US computer industry you will see time and again where front line people had a better idea and struck off on their own to make their own mark – Univac begat Control Data, Control data begat Cray and Seagate etc etc. We are becoming a hollowed out country. This effect does not happen through automation as long as the automation is being done in the US.
Thursday ~ January 20th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Econ Skeptic
Along the lines of distributional impact of this, we also need to think about tax policy. If 90% of the population will be on welfare due to lack of employment, that’ll cost a pretty penny – and yet the “individual income tax” as a sourse of revenue will be virtually non-existent. Perhaps that’s something that tax wonks should take into account while debating the U.S. tax code overhaul? A VAT and a tax on capital base would work increasingly better where additional capital (robots) adds a lot of value to inputs.
Friday ~ January 21st, 2011 at 1:46 am
Los Robots, y la Pérdida de Empleos por su causa. | Robotikka
[...] Vía| motherjones.com ¦ modeledbehavior.com [...]
Tuesday ~ January 25th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
engineer27
Sapienism?