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Roboapocalypse?: Not in Your
Lifetime
J. Bradford DeLong
Economics and Blum Center, UC Berkeley; WCEG; and NBER
http://bradford-delong.com
| @delong |
delong@econ.berkeley.edu
June 21, 2019
No Longer Fresh at Project Syndicate
:
Will the imminent “rise of the robots”
threaten all future human employment?
The most thoughtful discussion of that
question can be found in MIT economist
David H. Autor’s 2015 paper, “Why Are
There Still so Many Jobs?”, which
considers the problem in the context of
Polanyi’s Paradox. Given that “we can
know more than we can tell,” the
twentieth-century philosopher Michael
Polanyi observed, we shouldn’t assume
that technology can replicate the function
of human knowledge itself. Just because a
computer can know everything there is to
know about a car doesn’t mean it can
drive it. This distinction between tacit
knowledge and information bears directly
on the question of what humans will be
doing to produce economic value in the
future.
Historically, the tasks that humans have
performed have fallen into ten broad
categories. The fi rst, and most basic, is
using one’s body to move physical
objects, which is followed by using one’s
eyes and fi ngers to create discrete material
goods. The third category involves
feeding materials into machine-driven
production processes–that is, serving as a
human robot–which is followed by
actually guiding the operations of a
machine (acting as a human
microprocessor).
In the fi fth and sixth categories, one is
elevated from microprocessor to software,
performing accounting-and-control tasks
or facilitating communication and the
exchange of information. In the seventh
J. Bradford DeLong
Roboapocalypse?
category, one actually writes the software,
translating tasks into code (here, one
encounters the old joke that every
computer needs an additional “Do”
command: “Do What I Mean”).
In the eighth category, one provides a
human connection, whereas in the ninth,
one acts as cheerleader, manager, or
arbiter for other humans.
Finally, in the tenth category, one thinks
critically about complex problems, and
then devises novel inventions or solutions
to them.
For the past 6,000 years, tasks in the fi rst
category have gradually been offloaded,
fi rst to draft animals and then to machines.
For the past 300 years, tasks in the second
category have also been offloaded to
machines. In both cases, jobs in categories
three through six – all of which
augmented the increasing power of the
machines – became far more prevalent,
and wages grew enormously.
But we have since developed machines
that are better than humans at performing
tasks in categories three and four – where
we behave like robots and
microprocessors – which is why
manufacturing as a share of total
employment in advanced economies has
been declining for two generations, even
as the productivity of manufacturing has
increased. This trend, combined with
monetary policymakers’ excessive anti-
inflationary zeal, is a major factor
contributing to the recent rise of
neofascism in the United States and other
Western countries.
Worse, we have now reached the point
where robots are also better than humans
at performing the “software” tasks in
categories fi ve and six, particularly when
it comes to managing the flow of
information and, it must be said,
misinformation. Nonetheless, over the
next few generations, this process of
technological development will work
itself out, leaving humans with just four
categories of things to do:
•
thinking critically,
•
overseeing other humans,
•
providing a human connection, and
•
translating human whims into a
language the machines can understand.
The problem is that very few of us have
the genius to produce genuine economic
value with our own creativity. The
wealthy can employ only so many
personal assistants. And many
cheerleaders, managers, and dispute-
settlers are already unnecessary.
That leaves category eight: as long as
livelihoods are tied to remunerative
employment, the prospect of preserving a
middle-class society will depend on
enormous demand for human connection.
Here, Polanyi’s Paradox gives us cause for
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J. Bradford DeLong
Roboapocalypse?
hope. The task of providing “human
connection” is not just inherently
emotional and psychological; it also
requires tacit knowledge of social and
cultural circumstances that cannot be
codifi ed into concrete, routine commands
for computers to follow. Moreover, each
advance in technology creates new
domains in which tacit knowledge
matters, even when it comes to interacting
with the new technologies themselves.
As Autor observes, though auto
manufacturers “employ industrial robots
to install windshields… aftermarket
windshield replacement companies
employ technicians, not robots.” It turns
out that “removing a broken windshield,
preparing the windshield frame to accept a
replacement, and fi tting a replacement
into that frame demand more real-time
adaptability than any contemporary robot
can cost-effectively approach.” In other
words, automation depends on fully
controlled conditions, and humans will
never achieve full control of the entire
environment.
Some might counter that artifi cial-
intelligence applications could develop a
capacity to absorb “tacit knowledge.” Yet
even if machine-learning algorithms could
communicate back to us why they have
made certain decisions, they will only
ever work in restricted environmental
domains. The wide range of specifi c
conditions that they need in order to
function properly renders them brittle and
fragile, particularly when compared to the
robust adaptability of human beings.
At any rate, if the “rise of the robots”
represents a threat, it won’t be salient
within the next two generations.
For now, we should worry less about
technological unemployment, and more
about the role of technology in spreading
disinformation. Without a properly
functioning public sphere, why bother
debating economics in the fi rst place?
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