It would depend on exact details, but if a machine can do something as well or better than a human, then the machine should do it.
It’s a question of how to design work. Machine can cultivate better than a human a monoculture mega-farm, but not a small permaculture garden (at least, yet). Is a monoculture mega-farm more “effective”? Maybe, if we take the pre-AI opportunity cost of human labour, but also maybe not with the post-AI opportunity cost of human labour. And this is before factoring in the “economic value” of better psychological and physical health of people who work on small farms vs. those who eat processed food on their couches that is done from the crops grown on monoculture mega-farms, and do nothing.
As I understand, Acemoglu rougly suggests to look for ways to apply this logic in other domain of economy, including the knowledge economy. Yes, it’s not guaranteed that such arrangements will stay economical for a long time (but it’s also not beyond my imagination, especially if we factor in the economic value of physical and psychological health), but it may set the economy and the society on a different trajectory with higher chances of eventualities that we would consider “not doom”.
What does “foster labour voice” even mean?
Unions 2.0, or something like holacracy?
Especially in companies where everything is automated.
Not yet. Clearly, what he suggests could only remain effective for a limited time.
You can give more power to current employees of current companies, but soon there will be new startups with zero employees (or where, for tax reasons, owners will formally employ their friends or family members).
Not that soon at all, if we speak about the real economy. In IT sector, I suspect that Big Techs will win big in the AI race because only they have deep enough pockets (you already see Inflection AI quasi-acquired by MS, Stability essentially bust, etc.). And Big Techs still have huge workforces and it won’t be just Nadella or just Pichai anytime soon. Many other knowledge sectors (banks, law) are regulated and also won’t shed employees that fast.
Human-complementary AI technologies again sounds like a bullshit job, only mostly did by a machine, where a human is involved somewhere in the loop, but the machine could still do his part better, too.
In my gardening example, a human may wear AI goggles that tell them which plants or animal species do their see or what disease a plant has.
Tax on media platforms—solves a completely different problem. Yes, it is important to care about public mental health. But that is separate from the problem of technological unemployment. (You could have technological unemployment even in the universe where all social media are banned.)
Tax on media platforms is just a concrete example of how “reforming business models” could be done in practice, maybe not the best one (but it’s not my example). I will carry on with my gardening example and suggest “tax on fertiliser”: make it so huge that megafarms (which require a lot of fertiliser) become less economical than permaculture gardens. Because without such a push, permaculture gardens won’t magically materialise. Acemoglu underscores this point multiple times: it’s not a matter of pure technological invention and application of it in a laissez-faire market to switch to a different socioeconomic trajectory. Inventing AI goggles for gardening (or any other technology which makes permaculture gardening arbitrarily convenient) won’t make the economy to switch from monoculture mega-farms without an extra push.
Perhaps, Acemoglu also has something in his mind about attention/creator economy and the automation that may happen to them (AI influencers can replace human influencers) when he talks about “digital ad tax”, but I don’t see it.
Thank you for the answers, they are generally nice but this one part rubbed me the wrong way:
And this is before factoring in the “economic value” of better psychological and physical health of people who work on small farms vs. those who eat processed food on their couches that is done from the crops grown on monoculture mega-farms, and do nothing.
If I live to see a post-scarcity society, I sincerely hope that I will be allowed to organize my remaining free time as I want to, instead of being sent to work on a small farm for psychological and physical health benefits. I would rather get the same benefits from taking a walk with my friends, or something like that.
I do not want to dismiss the health concerns, but again these are two different problems—how to solve technological unemployment, and how to take care of one’s health in the modern era—which can be solved separately.
It’s a question of how to design work. Machine can cultivate better than a human a monoculture mega-farm, but not a small permaculture garden (at least, yet). Is a monoculture mega-farm more “effective”? Maybe, if we take the pre-AI opportunity cost of human labour, but also maybe not with the post-AI opportunity cost of human labour. And this is before factoring in the “economic value” of better psychological and physical health of people who work on small farms vs. those who eat processed food on their couches that is done from the crops grown on monoculture mega-farms, and do nothing.
As I understand, Acemoglu rougly suggests to look for ways to apply this logic in other domain of economy, including the knowledge economy. Yes, it’s not guaranteed that such arrangements will stay economical for a long time (but it’s also not beyond my imagination, especially if we factor in the economic value of physical and psychological health), but it may set the economy and the society on a different trajectory with higher chances of eventualities that we would consider “not doom”.
Unions 2.0, or something like holacracy?
Not yet. Clearly, what he suggests could only remain effective for a limited time.
Not that soon at all, if we speak about the real economy. In IT sector, I suspect that Big Techs will win big in the AI race because only they have deep enough pockets (you already see Inflection AI quasi-acquired by MS, Stability essentially bust, etc.). And Big Techs still have huge workforces and it won’t be just Nadella or just Pichai anytime soon. Many other knowledge sectors (banks, law) are regulated and also won’t shed employees that fast.
In my gardening example, a human may wear AI goggles that tell them which plants or animal species do their see or what disease a plant has.
Tax on media platforms is just a concrete example of how “reforming business models” could be done in practice, maybe not the best one (but it’s not my example). I will carry on with my gardening example and suggest “tax on fertiliser”: make it so huge that megafarms (which require a lot of fertiliser) become less economical than permaculture gardens. Because without such a push, permaculture gardens won’t magically materialise. Acemoglu underscores this point multiple times: it’s not a matter of pure technological invention and application of it in a laissez-faire market to switch to a different socioeconomic trajectory. Inventing AI goggles for gardening (or any other technology which makes permaculture gardening arbitrarily convenient) won’t make the economy to switch from monoculture mega-farms without an extra push.
Perhaps, Acemoglu also has something in his mind about attention/creator economy and the automation that may happen to them (AI influencers can replace human influencers) when he talks about “digital ad tax”, but I don’t see it.
Thank you for the answers, they are generally nice but this one part rubbed me the wrong way:
If I live to see a post-scarcity society, I sincerely hope that I will be allowed to organize my remaining free time as I want to, instead of being sent to work on a small farm for psychological and physical health benefits. I would rather get the same benefits from taking a walk with my friends, or something like that.
I do not want to dismiss the health concerns, but again these are two different problems—how to solve technological unemployment, and how to take care of one’s health in the modern era—which can be solved separately.