The last two posts on this blog have centred on the paradox of productivity. This post carries on the same theme as it relates to technological innovations and AI. I know I’ve written a few posts about AI over the last few months, but this is a topic that deserves more of our attention due to the ramifications it could have for our everyday lives. When the applications of AI are discussed in the media, I find that there are two distinct groups, or schools of thought. There’s the group that chomps at the bit to leverage the power of AI to increase productivity and economic output by several orders of magnitude. Then there’s the other group that cautions against the application of AI to the factors of production because of what it could mean for people’s jobs, in other words, displacement and redundancy.
The first group are made up of those who see AI as the best thing to ever happen to humankind, often comparing it to the Industrial Revolution and citing all the benefits that could accrue to us if we stay the course. They also seem to have answers to proactively address the second group’s concerns about job displacement. This is where you’ll hear things like “AI won’t take your job, but someone using AI will”. The people who make up the second group, on the other hand, are often called “Luddites”. We think of the term “Luddites” as an insult, but what often goes unacknowledged is that the term dates back to the Industrial Revolution, as it was used to describe the group of followers of the mythical Ned Ludd who revolted against the use of new machinery in cotton mills instead of the skilled workers who performed the tasks by hand. The important bit of context here is that the Luddites weren't just against the new machines for the sake of it, but were against how it was used to create inferior products at the expense of skilled workers. The only winners in that scenario were the owners of the mills, a very select few members of the upper class. Everyone else in the society was sure to miss out on the benefits of the new machinery, so when the masses ridiculed the Luddites for raging against the machines, the masses were campaigning against their own best interests.
This was the crux of the Writers Guild strike we saw last year. In a 2023 interview, Michael Schur stated that it has never been this hard to make a career of writing and if it carries on like this, the possibility of making a living as a writer might be on par with the possibility of becoming a professional basketball player. Schur stated that a successful writing career would be out of reach for most people and it would be a shame to lose out on so many stories, perspectives and viewpoints. If that isn’t bad enough, consider the fact that AI as we know it is trained on existing data, which means the resulting systems will end up inheriting the biases inherent in the data, as well as the biases of the creators and trainers, thus making it less and less likely that the resulting systems will be capable of accounting for and catering to all the diversity that exists in society.
This isn't to say we should eschew all technological innovations. On the contrary, innovation is a good thing. However, it all boils down to the how and the who; how the innovation is introduced and applied, and who is in charge of the applications to society. In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, we’d be working no more than 15 hours a week because all the gains of the Industrial Revolution would supercharge our production pipelines. His idea was that we’d have super machines to do all the monotonous, back-breaking jobs, leaving us with all the free time we could ever need to make and consume art, engage in philosophy, sport, leisure, rest, and spend time with friends and family. Well, it’s not quite 2030 yet, but needless to say, Keynes’ prediction hasn’t quite worked out. On the contrary, we seem to be headed in the opposite direction. We have the machines and the technological capabilities needed to make this all a reality and yet, for a host of reasons, not all of which should be attributed to our relationship to technology, we work more than ever before. Could the situation get any more dystopian? This question isn't rhetorical and the answer is yes, yes it can. The masses could be put out of work by the machines, while the economic benefits that accrue will fail to trickle down from the hands of the ruling class, thus widening the class and inequality gap. This all sounds like the economic situation that the Luddites campaigned against 200 years ago, but unfortunately the same rings true today.
To paraphrase the old saying, history doesn't repeat but it does rhyme. This is all to say we’ve been here before. The Luddites' fight wasn’t against technology, it was a fight against the adverse economic conditions that would result from the wrongful applications of the technology. In the 19th century, the Luddites were pitted against the owners of the cotton mills. In the early 20th century, the use of the horse as a means of transportation was pitted against a shiny innovation of transportation called the automobile, or car, as we know it today. Today, AI is branded as a tool for making art, writing movie scripts and composing music, and is thus pitted against artists, writers, musicians and a host of knowledge workers. Something isn’t quite right with this picture. I much prefer a version of the society where Keynes’ 1930 prediction holds, where we leverage technological advances to smooth over our production pipelines so that we can make time for art, stories, music, creativity, and all the things that make life worth living.
P.S.: My debut non-fiction book, Art Is The Way, and my middle-grade novella, A Hollade Christmas, are out everywhere now. You can get them in all good bookstores and from all major online vendors.