There is no good news for work in the era of intelligent machines

Already in 1984, in his book The Paths of Paradise, the self-proclaimed revolutionary reformer André Gorz declared bluntly that the microeconomic revolution announced the abolition of labor. He even claimed that paid work may cease to be a central concern at the end of the century. He did not choose a good time, but serious badysts think his approach was correct. The question is what a world of intelligent machines could mean for humanity. Will human beings become as economically irrelevant as horses? If so, what will happen to our individual self-esteem and the organization of our societies?

In a recent presentation, Adair Turner, former president of the British financial regulator and president of the Institute for New Economic Thought, addresses these issues. . It is badumed that intelligent machines, in the long run, will be able to do most current jobs better than people and at a lower cost. This, he argues, is a question of when it will happen, not if it will happen. And this will happen thanks to the progressive advance of processing power, the ability to replicate the software without cost, and to the larger machine learning. The robots will make us lose our work.

Based on the A Future That Works report, published by the McKinsey Global Institute last year, Lord Turner added that this future will not happen uniformly: some will be far more affected. before others. In addition, even if intelligent machines can not perform all aspects of a given job, they can move a large number of employees.

With current technology, predictable physical tasks and the collection and processing of data will be particularly vulnerable. Accommodation and gastronomy services, industrial plant and transportation will be very sensitive. According to an article by Jason Furman, the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Robert Seamans, of the Stern School of Business, who earn less and who have less education are at higher risk.

Lord Turner badures that what is happening also explains the paradox of rapid innovation productivity, but the low growth of productivity. Much of the explanation may be the shift from relatively well-paying jobs in sectors where productivity growth is relatively fast, such as manufacturing, to relatively low-paying jobs in relatively low-wage jobs. low productivity sectors, such as personal care. home health and retail. Of the ten US sectors with the highest projected growth in employment between 2014 and 2024 and expected to generate 29% of all new jobs, eight have average wages below the national average. This, of course, would aggravate inequality and would have extremely negative consequences on overall productivity.

But that's not all. Lord Turner also suggested other reasons for increasing inequality and low average productivity growth. The first is the growth of zero-sum (or near-zero) activities, some of which are not measured in economic performance and few of which contribute to social well-being: think of the lobbies, the stock traders that they employ computerized methods, or tax lawyers. Even education has a strong zero-sum character: it's a positional good.

In addition, such zero-sum activities are well paid and, as a result, extract a large amount of income. Successful creators of near-digital monopolies also benefit from a huge amount of revenue. Therefore, no less important, the same thing happens with homeowners in prosperous agglomerations. The new economy is therefore the rentier's paradise.

The second reason is the under-declaration of the value of free services. This is possible. But free services such as social media can, according to him, contribute little to the well-being. At this time, they are likely to contribute to the personal misery and destruction of our democracies.

So here is the picture of the medium-term future: slow growth in global productivity and deepening of inequality. It is incompatible with a stable democracy. A worsening of the current greed and grievance policy is more likely to occur. The result could be the plutocracy, the populist autocracy or a mixture of both. If, in the end, automation was economically irrelevant to humanity, the challenges would be even more radical.