Race Against the Machine
For the past several years, two MIT big thinkers[1] have been the go-to authorities in the scramble to explain how robotics, artificial intelligence, and big data are revolutionizing the economy and the working world. Their two books were published four and six years ago — so yesterday in the world of technology — but they were remarkably prescient when written, and have not diminished in relevance. They are:
The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (2014)
Click here for a chapter-by-chapter digest of The Second Machine Age, written by an all star cast of economic commentators. Among other things, they acknowledge the authors’ view that neoliberal capitalism has not fared well in its dealings with the technological juggernaut, but in the absence of a better alternative, we might as well continue to ride the horse in the direction it’s going:
“While admitting that History (not human choice) is ‘littered with unintended… side effects of well-intentioned social and economic policies’, the authors cite Tim O’Reilly[2] in pushing forward with technology’s momentum rather than clinging to the past or present. They suggest that we should let the technologies do their work and just find ways to deal with it. They are ‘skeptical of efforts to come up with fundamental alternatives to capitalism.’”
David Rotman, editor of the MIT Technology Review cites The Second Machine Age extensively in an excellent, longer article, “ How Technology is Destroying Jobs.” The following excepts (I added the headings) emphasize what many might consider the shadowy side of the street (compared to the sunny side we looked at in the past couple posts).
It used to be that economic growth — including wealth creation — also created more jobs. It doesn’t work that way any more.
“Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence, according to Brynjolfsson, is a chart that only an economist could love. In economics, productivity-the amount of economic value created for a given unit of input, such as an hour of labor-is a crucial indicator of growth and wealth creation. It is a measure of progress. On the chart Brynjolfsson likes to show, separate lines represent productivity and total employment in the United States.
“For years after World War II, the two lines closely tracked each other, with increases in jobs corresponding to increases in productivity. The pattern is clear: as businesses generated more value from their workers, the country as a whole became richer, which fueled more economic activity and created even more jobs. Then, beginning in 2000, the lines diverge; productivity continues to rise robustly, but employment suddenly wilts. By 2011, a significant gap appears between the two lines, showing economic growth with no parallel increase in job creation. Brynjolfsson and McAfee call it the “great decoupling.” And Brynjolfsson says he is confident that technology is behind both the healthy growth in productivity and the weak growth in jobs.”
A rising economic tide no longer floats all boats. The result is a skewed allocation of the rewards of growth away from jobs — i.e., economic inequality.
“The contention that automation and digital technologies are partly responsible for today’s lack of jobs has obviously touched a raw nerve for many worried about their own employment. But this is only one consequence of what Brynjolfsson and McAfee see as a broader trend. The rapid acceleration of technological progress, they say, has greatly widened the gap between economic winners and losers-the income inequalities that many economists have worried about for decades.
“‘Steadily rising productivity raised all boats for much of the 20th century,’ [Brynjolfsson] says. ‘Many people, especially economists, jumped to the conclusion that was just the way the world worked. I used to say that if we took care of productivity, everything else would take care of itself; it was the single most important economic statistic. But that’s no longer true.’ He adds, ‘It’s one of the dirty secrets of economics: technology progress does grow the economy and create wealth, but there is no economic law that says everyone will benefit.’ In other words, in the race against the machine, some are likely to win while many others lose.
“That robots, automation, and software can replace people might seem obvious to anyone who’s worked in automotive manufacturing or as a travel agent. But Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s claim is more troubling and controversial. They believe that rapid technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them, contributing to the stagnation of median income and the growth of inequality in the United States.”
Meanwhile, technology is taking over the jobs that are left- blue collar, white collar, and even the professions.
“Impressive advances in computer technology-from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services-are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing, clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial services, education, and medicine.
“Technologies like the Web, artificial intelligence, big data, and improved analytics-all made possible by the ever increasing availability of cheap computing power and storage capacity-are automating many routine tasks. Countless traditional white-collar jobs, such as many in the post office and in customer service, have disappeared.
“New technologies are ‘encroaching into human skills in a way that is completely unprecedented,’ McAfee says, and many middle-class jobs are right in the bull’s-eye; even relatively high-skill work in education, medicine, and law is affected.”
We’ll visit the shadowy side of the street again next time.
[1] Erik Brynjolfsson is director of the MIT Center for Digital Business, and Andrew McAfee is a principal research scientist at MIT who studies how digital technologies are changing business, the economy, and society.
[2] According to his official bio on his website, Tim O’Reilly “is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc. His original business plan was simply ‘interesting work for interesting people,’ and that’s worked out pretty well. O’Reilly Media delivers online learning, publishes books, runs conferences, urges companies to create more value than they capture, and tries to change the world by spreading and amplifying the knowledge of innovators.”
Originally published at http://theneweconomyandthefutureofwork.wordpress.com on March 8, 2018.
