declineofscarcity | Now, it is worth noting that the “end of work” scenario is
not a foregone conclusion. Here are two potential defeaters to this
outcome:
- Human capabilities are not necessarily fixed. One byproduct of future technologies might be a redefinition of what it is to be human. If we begin to “upgrade” humans, whether through genetics or brain-computer interfaces or some other means, many technological unemployment concerns could become irrelevant. Upgradeable humans could solve both the retraining problem (just download a new skill set to your brain, matrix-style) and the issue of inelastic demand (super-humans might develop brand new classes of needs).
- A wide range of intangible goods—such as attention, experiences, potential, belonging, and status—might remain scarce indefinitely and continue to drive a market for human labor, even after the androids have arrived. Although it’s hard to imagine a market in such goods replacing our current manufacturing and service economy, it must have been equally hard for pre-industrial people working on farms to imagine the economy of today. Thus we may simply be lacking imagination when it comes to envisioning the jobs of the future. (For a more detailed discussion of this topic see episode 10 of the Review the Future podcast.)
Despite these defeaters, we definitely think the technological
unemployment scenario is worth thinking about. First of all, the issue
of timing is paramount, and at present it seems like we have a good
chance of automating away many jobs long before we figure out how to
upgrade human minds or develop brand new uses for human labor. Second,
it won’t take anything close to full unemployment to create problems for
our system. Even a twenty percent unemployment rate, (or an equivalent
drop in Labor Force Participation) for example, might be enough to
trigger a consumer collapse or at least great suffering and social
unrest among lower classes.
Final Thought
Wage labor is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
While the Second Machine Age paints a clear picture of some of the
potential problems facing our economy, it fails to fully take to heart
this fundamental distinction.
