It will be more challenging for those “have-nots” in the future AI world. Not only their labour will not be valued by the economy, their family roles will also be eroded: [...]
I think I mostly agree with this and would like to add a question / some confusion I personally have with these future scenarios:
A lot of (left-ish) spaces talk about how humans are used for their labor and how they’d like us to be “free from work” while also opposing progress in AI because “it means people lose their job”. For the same reason the first two points by Acemoglu you mention as a response seem short-sighted to me (or maybe I’m missing something).
Tax reforms to favour employment rather than automation
Foster labour voice for better power balance at the companies
In a world where AI is able to take over broad parts of work and prosperity for all is an attainable goal, shouldn’t our main goals be:
Find a new definition of meaning for humans (this relates back to OPs point about eroding all roles)
One reason why people seem to oppose “unemployment through AI” seems to be that a lot of people derive meaning from their work (even if they don’t like their jobs, it’s at least something)
Ensure sufficient redistribution of wealth (e.g. through UBI)
I’m curious to hear what I’m missing and also looking forward to some more resources on this!
Take care of 2 and 1 will take care of itself. The reason people fear unemployment is because they fear poverty. If the economy is producing incredible amounts of wealth, and there are robust distributive policies allowing everyone access to that wealth, I would expect people to be much happier than they are today. If people have the positive liberty to hang out with their friends, travel, learn new skills, go to restaurants, etc. they’ll do it. There are a myriad of ways that people will find to be “useful” and “valued” outside of the workplace. They can derive meaning from their relationships or their creative pursuits.
First, it doesn’t look politically feasible to me to “take care” of redistribution in the global context, without also tackling all the other aspects that Acemoglu mentions, and more aspects that I mention. Redistribution among Americans only (cf. Sam Altman’s proposal) will make another kind of two-tiered society: Americans and everyone else.
Second, I see the major issue in that people are too culturally conditioned (and to some degree hard-wired) at the moment to play the social status game, cf. Girardian mimetic theory. If we imagine a world where everyone is as serene, all-loving, and non-competitive as Mahatma Gandhi, of course job displacement would go fine. But what we actually have is people competing for zero-sum status: in politics, business, and media. Some “losers” in this game do fine (learn new skills and go to restaurants), but a huge portion of them are depressed, cannot have success in personal life, abuse substances and food, etc.
A large scale rewiring of society towards non-competition should be possible, but it should be accompanied exactly by the economic measures and business model innovation (cf. Maven social network—without likes and followers) that I discuss. Because psychological and social engineering won’t be successful outside of the economic context.
The two measures you quoted may be “short lived”, or maybe they could (if successful, which Acemoglu himself is very doubtful about) send the economy and the society on a somewhat different trajectory which may have rather different eventualities (including in terms of meaning) than if these measures are not applied.
I agree that developing new ideas in the social, psychological, and philosophical domains (the domain of meaning; may also be regarded as part of “psychology”) is essential. But it could only be successful in the context of the current technological, social, and economic reality (which may be “set in motion” by other economic and political measures).
For example, currently, a lot of people seem to derive their meaning in life from blogging on social media. I can relatively easily imagine that this will become a dominant source of meaning for most of the world’s population. Without judging whether this is “good” or “bad” meaning in some grand scheme of things and the effects of this, discussing this seriously is contingent on the existence of social media platforms and their embeddedness in society and the economy.
I think I mostly agree with this and would like to add a question / some confusion I personally have with these future scenarios:
A lot of (left-ish) spaces talk about how humans are used for their labor and how they’d like us to be “free from work” while also opposing progress in AI because “it means people lose their job”. For the same reason the first two points by Acemoglu you mention as a response seem short-sighted to me (or maybe I’m missing something).
In a world where AI is able to take over broad parts of work and prosperity for all is an attainable goal, shouldn’t our main goals be:
Find a new definition of meaning for humans (this relates back to OPs point about eroding all roles)
One reason why people seem to oppose “unemployment through AI” seems to be that a lot of people derive meaning from their work (even if they don’t like their jobs, it’s at least something)
Ensure sufficient redistribution of wealth (e.g. through UBI)
I’m curious to hear what I’m missing and also looking forward to some more resources on this!
Take care of 2 and 1 will take care of itself. The reason people fear unemployment is because they fear poverty. If the economy is producing incredible amounts of wealth, and there are robust distributive policies allowing everyone access to that wealth, I would expect people to be much happier than they are today. If people have the positive liberty to hang out with their friends, travel, learn new skills, go to restaurants, etc. they’ll do it. There are a myriad of ways that people will find to be “useful” and “valued” outside of the workplace. They can derive meaning from their relationships or their creative pursuits.
First, it doesn’t look politically feasible to me to “take care” of redistribution in the global context, without also tackling all the other aspects that Acemoglu mentions, and more aspects that I mention. Redistribution among Americans only (cf. Sam Altman’s proposal) will make another kind of two-tiered society: Americans and everyone else.
Second, I see the major issue in that people are too culturally conditioned (and to some degree hard-wired) at the moment to play the social status game, cf. Girardian mimetic theory. If we imagine a world where everyone is as serene, all-loving, and non-competitive as Mahatma Gandhi, of course job displacement would go fine. But what we actually have is people competing for zero-sum status: in politics, business, and media. Some “losers” in this game do fine (learn new skills and go to restaurants), but a huge portion of them are depressed, cannot have success in personal life, abuse substances and food, etc.
A large scale rewiring of society towards non-competition should be possible, but it should be accompanied exactly by the economic measures and business model innovation (cf. Maven social network—without likes and followers) that I discuss. Because psychological and social engineering won’t be successful outside of the economic context.
The two measures you quoted may be “short lived”, or maybe they could (if successful, which Acemoglu himself is very doubtful about) send the economy and the society on a somewhat different trajectory which may have rather different eventualities (including in terms of meaning) than if these measures are not applied.
I agree that developing new ideas in the social, psychological, and philosophical domains (the domain of meaning; may also be regarded as part of “psychology”) is essential. But it could only be successful in the context of the current technological, social, and economic reality (which may be “set in motion” by other economic and political measures).
For example, currently, a lot of people seem to derive their meaning in life from blogging on social media. I can relatively easily imagine that this will become a dominant source of meaning for most of the world’s population. Without judging whether this is “good” or “bad” meaning in some grand scheme of things and the effects of this, discussing this seriously is contingent on the existence of social media platforms and their embeddedness in society and the economy.