Fighting AI and Automation Anxiety

Why we shouldn’t fear the computer

ai ai economics economics presentations work

3 minutes

I gave a talk on “automation anxiety” in 2020 1 to explore reasons why people are (rightfully) scared that computers will take their jobs. This was before ChatGPT was a thing, and events like the ongoing Writers’ strikes 2 only emphasize the importance of equipping the right tools in the labor markets today.

On the other hand, I think AI will have an extremely hard time taking over the world in the short run. I’ll give three reasons why:

  1. Economics of automation: Software is notoriously becoming harder to design, maintain and develop 3. It might just be easier and cheaper to hire humans to do certain tasks. Despite technological advances in automobiles 🚗 and airplanes ✈️, there’s a reason why bipedal modes of transport haven’t become obsolete yet. 🏃‍♂️💨💨

  2. Political and Cultural significance: In Bullshit Jobs, Anthropologist David Graebel posits that governments and the rich create jobs as a means of asserting power and to stroke their own egos. Sometimes, jobs carry cultural and ancestral value. For some of us, it’s even a part of our (literal) identity, as under the feudal system, people often named themselves after their trade, such as Barber 💇, Fisher 🎣, or Cook 🧑‍🍳 4. So even with technological advancements, it looks like we’ll always have artificial demand for jobs, bullshit or not.

  3. Rise in consumption: We seem to work more today than we did in the 1950s to be able to afford and acquire more things 5. Economist Juliet Schor notes that comfort is no longer enough, and luxuries have become necessities for us. If hedonistic adaptation continues to run its course, our insatiable thirst for stuff will overwhelm our AI overlords, and we’ll have no choice but to step in and bridge the gap in production 🏭.

Despite all the pessimism surrounding AI, I think there’s plenty of room for humble laborers like us to continue our life of service. John Maynard Keynes mused that his grandchildren would only work 15-hour work weeks 6. It goes to show that crystal balls don’t exist, even for renowned economists 🤕.

Discussions welcomed on Github.

Acknowledgements #

Thank you to Josh and Nate for their kind discussions and feedback on an earlier draft.

Notes #

  1. This was a Lightning Talk at UKC2020, booklet available here. I even got a shout out in page 97 😆! This talk was inspired by a New York Times article about lamplighters going on strike in 1907. ↩︎

  2. It’s important to note that limiting the use of AI is only a part of their platform. I’m not trying to strawman the entire movement here. ↩︎

  3. Fred Brooks even noted this in The Mythical Man Month, which was written in 1975 👀. ↩︎

  4. For more context, see: https://localhistories.org/the-origin-of-surnames/ ↩︎

  5. From Juliet Schor’s The Overspent American: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdaQnGgWoPg ↩︎

  6. John Maynard Keynes, along with his opponent Friedrich Hayek, is considered to be one of the most influential figures in modern economics. In 1930, he wrote this essay on why we should be optimistic about the economies of the future, and why his grandchildren will enjoy a life of leisure. ↩︎