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Course: Wireless Philosophy > Unit 5
Lesson 11: What if robots did all the work?What if robots did all the work?
In this Wireless Philosophy video, Ryan Jenkins (professor of Philosophy at Cal Poly) asks us to reflect on the increasing role of advanced technologies in producing the goods and services we consume as a society. How might it increasingly affect us, particularly as workers? And should we welcome that? Created by Gaurav Vazirani.
Video transcript
Hi, I’m Ryan Jenkins,
a philosophy professor at Cal Poly. It’s clear how technological
advancement has improved the plight of
the worker in many ways, freeing hundreds of millions of people
from dangerous, dirty, or unpleasant jobs. Efficiency increases
in farming, for example, have meant that, for the same
amount of labor previously required to simply sustain their own family, a single farmer can now produce
enough food to feed over 100 people. And what’s true in farming
has also held for manufacturing, transportation, banking, and
other sectors of the economy. Let’s imagine a far-off world, a world where machines
can do most of our work for us. Is this world coming?
And should we welcome it? Two thousand years ago, Aristotle imagined a world where
a loom could weave fabric by itself and a lyre would play
by itself to make music. Karl Marx imagined the
same thing in the mid-1800s: that in a future world of
sufficient industrial advancement, labor would become
“life’s prime want”, that is the thing we don’t have enough of, the thing that we miss in life! And the economist John
Maynard Keynes in 1930 prophesied that we would all be working
only 15-hour work weeks by now, and that it would be a huge problem
for society to find new uses of labor, after machines took over
most of the jobs we had to do to feed, clothe, and
house ourselves. Over the last three centuries, people
have moved from farms to factories, and then from factories to offices. We’re still waiting on
the 15-hour work week… But now there’s a new
transformation in work taking place: the shift to artificial
intelligence and robotics. And a lot of people think
that this time will be different. Why are they convinced
that AI and robotics will have such an unprecedented
impact on our work lives? Well, these technologies
can be built and programmed to do such an incredible
range of tasks that, it seems, with every passing year
there are fewer and fewer jobs robots wouldn't be able to
do at least as well as humans and at a much lower cost. We already see how robots have replaced
humans in many forms of manual labor. This is obvious in manufacturing, where the process of
assembling things like machinery, equipment, vehicles, and other
products have been largely automated. But such automation has also
already taken over much of our farming, mining, and
construction work. And surprisingly, artificial intelligence is starting
to be used for a lot of mental, or “cognitive,” labor, too. Many office jobs are cognitively demanding, but somewhat repetitive: filling out forms calculating
budgets, and so on. Tax prep and accounting, for example, are
at a pretty high risk of being automated. In fact, a lot of this work has
already been handed off to machines. AI has even been used to write
news stories about the stock market and recaps of sports games. What all this means is that having a
high-paying job or an advanced degree isn't surefire protection
against automation. According to some research, even professions like aerospace and nuclear
engineering are susceptible to automation! To be sure, experts are split on what the impacts
of automation will be in the near future. But a provocative analysis
by two Oxford economists estimated that almost
half of the jobs in the US could be automated away
in the next few decades. Now you’re talking almost 100 million new unemployed people in the US alone. Some people are content to believe that for every one job that
is eliminated by automation, another job is created, say,
for a programmer or a roboticist, so that the gains and losses balance out. But there’s no reason to think that’s a
law of economics that always holds up. This time could very well be different. Imagine a world where robots and
AI have taken just about all of our jobs. A lot of people, I think, would
welcome this world without question. But take a step back and
think about how deeply ingrained work is in our individual
psyche and in our larger society. Many people find their
jobs unpleasant, yes. But many people also
identify closely with their jobs; they consider it a calling. They appreciate having an
opportunity to contribute to society and to develop their skills and
talents in creative and challenging ways. When you think about the central
place that work occupies in our lives, it’s not surprising that many people
choose to work past retirement age. And people who are out of work, either because they are
unemployed, or retired, or teachers who have summers off, often struggle with depression,
listlessness, and ennui. Work provides structure, external
expectations and accountability, and a readymade community of people
with common interests to connect with. Work continues to be,
for better or worse, a source of meaning for
many, if not most of us. In a future without work, we
may find that Marx was right, that work is something we miss because
of its opportunities for fulfillment. Nowadays, when someone cannot
work through no fault of their own, say, they are elderly or disabled, we excuse them from
working and support them with programs like
Society Security or welfare. But what if, in a
future of automation, that population balloons to
encompass most of society? How would we accommodate the
swelling cost of the social safety net? And just as important, how would we find sources
of meaning and fulfillment for all of those who are unemployable? This is not to say all work
is enjoyable or pleasant most people don’t love their jobs; but a future without
work might be even worse. All of these reflections press us
to confront fundamental questions: What’s the role of technology in nurturing
and structuring meaningful human lives? How can we ensure that when we introduce technology
because of its efficiency gains, we don’t unexpectedly
leave our lives impoverished in ways we might have overlooked? What does the ideal
technological future really look like? What do you think?