What Can We Do About Automation?
Where the Industrial Revolution destroyed the need for human muscle power, the Technological Revolution will destroy the need for human brain power.
Sure, the Industrial Revolution displaced a lot of workers; but it still left in tact the value of the human mind. The human mind has an amazing ability to reason, create abstract ideas, and critically problem solve. Arguably, the human mind is what makes humans inherently valuable and provides the justification for social constructs like human rights. However, what do we do when the need for the human mind is greatly diminished by being replaced with artificial intelligence and machines that can do our jobs cheaper and faster?
On issues like market disruptions and ways to remedy them, both conservatives and progressives generally think alike. The immediate answer to those who might be less informed about the dangers of automation would be that it should be shut down completely. They would claim that the government has a responsibility to regulate the innovation. TV hosts, like Tucker Carlson for example, believe that that government officials should order the Department of Transportation to cease the implementation of automized trucks.
It’s worth saying that we know the government is really inefficient. It moves slowly and career politicians can rarely understand the intricacies of how the technology works. Did any of you cringe when you watched the Senate interrogate Mark Zuckerberg about social media and data protection? How can we expect people in power to effectively regulate technology when they can barely use a smartphone?
It’s pretty obvious that the automation of the trucking industry is inevitable. We can’t control innovation. It happens way faster than our ability to understand it. Markets drive for efficiency. Any development that can give a company a comparative advantage against its competitors will be used. In the short run, this will lead to cheaper, better quality, and faster delivery of goods. In the long run, however, we’re looking at massive unemployment, a discouraged workforce, social tension, and a massive mental health epidemic.
There are a few solutions that may provide a better answer to the problem. Instead of trying to ineffectively slow down automation, we should embrace its inevitability and take the initiative to solve the problems we can see coming.
One solution may be a universal basic income. Many tech moguls like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and others have preached its eventual necessity. A universal basic income would allow unemployed and displaced workers the minimum amount of income that it takes to meet basic needs like food, water, and basic housing. This would allow them the freedom to pursue passion projects, start businesses, and focus on further post-secondary education.
The UBI isn’t a cure-all. The UBI may provide for people’s physical needs, but its pretty ineffective in addressing their psychological needs. Look at what happens to lottery winners. They win their millions and are at first happy, but the vast majority wind up spending all of it within five years and become depressed and unfulfilled.
Humans are beasts of burden. We need work. We need to feel like we are valuable parts of society that can use power to affect change. Even someone with a relatively small amount of responsibilities can re-frame his job to make him feel like he’s contributing, in a small part, to a companies’ success. But this is a fragile and uncommon occurrence. And generally, the higher a person’s intelligence, the more it takes for them to feel fulfilled in life. John Stuart Mill once said that it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. In this case, however, even the pig will be dissatisfied.
So, the answer then to help curb the negative consequences of automation is to address the individual’s need for fulfillment in work, self-respect, and purpose.
This is obviously a much harder problem to solve that just providing for people’s physical needs. And this is where Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto starts to really make sense. We evolved from small hunter gatherer tribes where each member felt valued because they contributed, at least in a small way, to the preservation of themselves and their tribes. They had the fulfillment and self-respect from knowing that they could rely on their abilities to provide for themselves. So, what kind of psychological impact will it have on a society where all basic needs are met and it’s left to the individual to find surrogate goals that may or may not lead to that feeling of self-respect?
As corporations begin to rely less and less on human capital, they effectively create a massive underclass. And if history has taught us anything, its that societies with large inequality and power stratification are inherently unstable. All it takes is one revolutionary like Lenin to start spreading populist ideas that rally the underclass against those in power. And in the end, society will degrade into chaos, much like what happened in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.
