I had the pleasure of attending a "Sharp Viewpoints" event on my old employer's campus, where Dr. Kevin Hallock, university President, hosted two economists with expertise in AI, UVA's Anton Korinek and MIT's David Autor. The subject, AI and The Future of Work, should concern us all.
I hope not to misrepresent what I heard, but all three experts on stage consider it inevitable that AI will continue to advance rapidly and that it will disrupt careers in fields such as Finance, Computer Science, and Accounting. These have been popular majors for my former students. The scope of the disruption and what happens to wages, as AI takes on more white-collar tasks, remain to be seen. Korinek cited a ninefold increase in the capacity of AI systems annually, from a 2.5x increase in efficiency times a 4x increase in capabilities.
Korinek warned the audience that we have a small window of time to prepare for resultant changes without chaos in the economy, though Autor felt that if we were to see a gradual loss of a profession, which he called "generational," our economic health could be sustained. He did warn that nothing on the scope of 10% of jobs lost annually could be tolerated without an upheaval.
Both speakers likened gradual change to, say, automating trucking. The industry would slowly shed human drivers over time, because prior investment in vehicles and warehouses can't be profitably junked overnight. As older drivers retire, however, gradually fewer young people would enter the field and robots would take on the work of moving cargo on the highways.
As for me? Whoever or whatever does the driving, I still prefer trains for 90% of the hauling, with a truck doing the final leg of the journey.
The mood was cautiously optimistic, but I'm no optimist. My dad loved being a long-haul trucker. He was not as happy when he ran a wholesale produce company, though that enabled him to put away some money for when he retired. He preferred "the Road" to the security of a desk, and he passed that love of highway travel on to me. Driving have him a purpose. Yet dad, in retirement, did not begin to write poetry, learn Greek, or play golf. He watched TV and was bored while living on his social security and investment income.
Something the speakers did not address to my satisfaction: if we do have a future without nearly as many jobs for humans, what do many people without side interests or hobbies or talents do with their time? I'm not a good model: I've stayed more busy than ever since leaving full-time employment.
I ask my question, a Humanist's response, assuming that some sort of basic universal income would arise; Author prefers not a monthly dole but a universal basic investment fund for every citizen, beginning at birth.
Without it, I suspect we'd have some sort of Butlerian Jihad of the mass unemployed, to smash the data centers, and frankly, I'd support smashing them if the alternative meant vast numbers of destitute folks existing alongside a tiny elite empowered by AI. Our speakers did note how this sort of future could emerge, endangering democracy. I'd argue it already is emerging under the broligarchs of Silicon Valley and our current Administration.
Yet with income for all in a jobs-free future, we might have a lot of folks on a dole, not hiking or painting but watching TV and not contributing to our civilization. In my darkest hours, I also think we already have that, without a dole in the US.
It's better to have a purpose. I didn't hear much discussion of "what does it mean to be a human?" in last night's one-hour chat. Of course, that sort of discussion has been going on among philosophers for millennia, even before Socrates began to question people at Athens' Agora.
Both Korinek and Autor did fear a rise in inequality, as wages might fall while AI-copiloted productivity rises. That said, everyone agreed that we will have new jobs emerge, some of them related perhaps to newly found leisure time. Autor reminded us that 100 years ago, 38% of Americans worked in agriculture. Today under 2% do. But a person in 1926 also could not image the types of careers many of us now have. Nor did they have our concept of leisure time. A video-game developer's career would have been as alien as a Man from Mars.
Fair point, but when (according to them, not if) AI and humanoid robots replace most human labor, including game design, what will most of us do to find a purpose?
What will colleges do? Korineck, bless him, as well as Hallock, upheld the value of the Liberal Arts for coming to grips with essential and enduring questions. Autor, while nodding to the value of liberal education, said he'd be more "crass" to note that a college degree also means more income and professional training. I don't disagree with him, yet marrying some careerist coursework to a passion for something seems wiser than choosing a "safe" major in a field that bores you.
The even left me unsettled. If the future they predict comes, I'd begin by having students read Plato's Republic and The Federalist Papers with me, for two explanations of what a society can do to organize itself against chaos.
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