Making Peace With AI
Bubba
08 Oct
Amid the fallout of the International Longshoreman’s Association strike over automation at docks, new research cuts against the idea that artificial intelligence will necessarily make many human workers obsolete. (AEIdeas)
The study: In an analysis of decades of data, economists at the Bank of Italy found that the long-term economic impacts of AI actually increased employment and wages for workers.
American Enterprise Institute fellow James Pethokoukis’ summary of the study:
What the researchers found paints a surprisingly rosy picture — well, surprising a society so steeped in techno-pessimism about “robots taking all the jobs” — of AI’s macroeconomic impact. As AI innovation surges, it ripples through the economy, boosting industrial output and driving down consumer prices. Far from the job-killing specter often portrayed in popular media, AI appears to be a job creator, pushing up employment rates, extending work hours, and fattening paychecks.
It’s not all good news: Researchers found the “expansionary impact of AI-driven technological development comes at the cost of an increase in inequality across income and wealth distributions.”
Political blogger Noah Smith in a new essay:
So far, most technologies that we’ve ever invented have ended up complementing human labor instead of cutting humans out of the equation. Power looms and steam shovels and plumbing replaced human muscle power for certain tasks, but they required humans to operate. Computers replaced human calculation, handwriting, etc. for certain tasks, but they required humans to operate. In the end, there were more things for humans to do after these technologies replaced some of the things that humans used to do. After centuries of automation, most people in rich countries still have jobs.
Bubba’s Two Cents
It’s hard not to feel sympathy for people worried that technology’s going to put them out of a job from one day to the next. But the harsh reality of progress seems to be that if a technology works better, faster, more efficiently, there’s only so long you can stall it before it gets implemented. Trying to find a way to use innovation to enhance human jobs seems like a more effective strategy than trying to stop things from changing altogether. Otherwise you’re left looking like union boss Harold Daggett, who last month complained about the evils of E-ZPass technology and lamented the fact that we don’t use toll booth workers anymore.