Technological Unemployment and the Basic Income Guarantee
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James J. Hughes Ph.D.Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging TechnologiesPublic Policy Studies, Trinity College, Hartford CTJames.Hughes@trincoll.edu
We are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name, but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come - namely, technological unemployment. This means unemployment due to our discovery of means of economizing the use of labor outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labor. (Keynes, 1930)
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
John Maynard Keynes
As women entered the labor force in pink and white collar jobs, men were leaving farm and manual labor
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
Compensation via new machines and products.
New machines require new occupations to build and service them.
New machines make possible the production of new goods and services.
Compensation via decrease in prices.
Innovation reduces the cost of inputs and goods, stimulates greater demand, creating more employment.
Compensation via new investments.
Innovation increases the profit margins of the owning class, who then invest in the creation of more employment.
Compensation via decrease in wages.
If wages are allowed to find their equilibrium point, all unemployed workers can find new jobs at lower wages.
Compensation via increase in wages.
Keynesian policies distribute some of the increased profitability to workers as wages, with a consequent demand stimulus on the economy and employment. (Vivarelli and Pianta, 2000)
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
Paid labor force has declined since 2000
Jobless recovery since 2008
Aging of population and technological unemployment
The percent of 18-65 year olds in paid labor
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
All jobs are potentially automatable, done cheaper and better than by human workers
ICT makes it more profitable to invest in machines than to hire workers
Probability of Computerisation
Recreational therapists 0.003 Dentists 0.004 Personal trainers 0.007 Clergy 0.008 Chemical engineers 0.02 Editors 0.06 Fire fighters 0.17 Actors 0.37 Health technologists 0.40 Economists 0.43 Commercial pilots 0.55 Machinists 0.65 Word processors/typists 0.81 Estate agents 0.86 Technical writers 0.89 Retail sales assistants 0.92 Accountants 0.94 Telemarketers 0.99
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
Frey, C.B. and M. Osborne. 2013. The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerization? Oxford Martin School, Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, University of. Oxford.
ICT reduces number of workers in supply chains
Since the 1980s the fastest declining occupations had the highest rates of unionization, and the fastest growing occupations had low rates
Redistribution of wealth to the top 10%
Professional core with growing hierarchical management
Complex product resistant to measurement, “efficiency” and automation Learning outcomes and
standardized tests and curricula
Health outcomes and standardized testing, treatment and care plans
Even diagnosing, prescribing and surgery can be automated
Robot nurses aides
Telepresence doctors
Robot home care Robotic surgery
Expert diagnostic and treatment systems used by nurses and PAs do better than doctors for most conditions
Home and medical telemonitoring of heart, blood pressure, blood sugar, urinalysis, prescription compliance, etc.
Online and hybrid models growing
The cost bubble in higher education is about to burst
K-12 Courseware • University of Phoenix is largest in US
• MOOCs at Stanford, Harvard, MIT
Half of all employment is involved in production, transport or sales of things
Diffusion of desktop manufacturing could be very rapid
Computer power doubles every two years
Jobs requiring human empathy and insight are probably going to be the last to automate
But still..
Robot prostitutes
AI Counseling Smartphone confession
So far, education has determined who is most vulnerable
But un- and underemployment of college grads is rising
At least those with education and affluence are
Life expectancy for poor females is declining
Older workers staying in labor force longer
Crashing fertility rates
Reform of pension and social security systems
But where will seniors find jobs if retirement age raised?
The policy debate in US has not caught up
Austerity is macroeconomic dead-end
IMF 2012 on “longevity risk”: If average life spans by 2050 were to increase 3 years more than now expected aging-related costs would increase by 50 percent
Longevity Dividend if therapies slow aging, reduce disease and disability
But we still need to address insolvency of pensions and inequity of dependency ratio
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
Protecting Employment Re-distributing Employment Creating Employment Enhancing Human Workers Techno-Utopian Proposals Basic Income Guarantee
Machine bans will be proposed
Agricultural subsidies & protectionism
NJ’s ban on self-serve gasoline
High costs
Lower quality and convenience
Reduced competitiveness
Ming Dynasty Seapower
Tokugawa Isolation
Higher costs
Lower quality
Reduced international competitiveness
Geopolitical vulnerability
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
1853 - Comm. Perry enters Japan
In egalitarian countries technological change has led to prosperity
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
Re-distributing employment with job-sharing Administrative costs
Longer educations with subsidization
More vacations, or a shorter work week Either higher costs or reduced productivity
Lower mandatory retirement ages Loss of skilled workers
Higher old-age dependency ratio
Most public sector jobs are also automatable
Make-work jobs that are easily automated are politically unpopular
If income taxes decline, expanding public employment may be impossible
Current recession has seen shrinking govt payrolls
US and European militaries have been shrinking
U.S. Army projects that military robotics will displace a quarter of combat soldiers by 2030
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
Could we every catch up?
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
Post-scarcity super-abundance
Free molecular manufacturing
Universal stock ownership in post-Singularity stock market
Charity from the super-rich
Imagining the liberation from toil since Condorcet
Hans Moravec 1995: “When industry is totally automated and hyper-efficient, it will create so much wealth that retirement can begin at birth. We'll levy a tax on corporations and distribute the money to everyone as lifetime social-security payments."
Tom Paine: Annual payments should be made "to every person, rich or poor…in lieu of the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man…”
Expanding social wage
Universal basic income guarantee
Economies need consumers even more than workers
Tom Paine
Increase progressivity of the income tax
But with shrinking employment and dependency ratio…
Carbon taxes
Consumption taxes
Public ownership of resources (Alaskan citizen’s dividend)
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologiesieet.org
These slides:
http://ieet.org/archive
Me: director@ieet.org
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