Many conversations about artificial intelligence (AI) are colored with fear. Some are concerned about privacy issues, others about abuse of power and upending social relationships. Much of the fear centers around job destruction. These last concerns are by no means new. They have emerged with every technological advance since the Industrial Revolution began in the late 18th century. These are very old stories, and today’s reviewers add to what is otherwise very new. If history teaches us anything about this issue, it is that hopes and fears are exaggerated.
The recent job insecurity is at the root of the Hollywood writers’ strike. Of course, worker concerns about wages are common, but concerns have also been expressed that ChatGPT and similar AI applications will replace writers.Aside from Hollywood concerns, there are more widespread worries about jobs.. Investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts that about 300 million jobs will be lost or lost to AI. This applies to the entire U.S. population, but Goldman thinks on a global scale. Some, including tech industry leaders such as Richard Branson, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk, believe that AI-induced unemployment will reach such a scale that countries will seek government-provided relief for widespread poverty. of Universal Basic Income (UBI). otherwise it continues.
All this recent anxiety reverberates Past reactions to early innovations such as spinning and looms in the late 1700s, railroads, telephones, computers and a long list of others. But despite all the fear expressed at each stage of this process, the innovations that destroyed some jobs also helped create an equal number or more of new jobs. And these disruptive transitions have always occurred in a time of greater material wealth than before, as innovation has increased productive capacity.
Fear is easy to understand whenever it is expressed. It’s always clear which jobs are vulnerable. But it takes a great deal of imagination to see what new jobs will be created in response. For example, when computers have eliminated thousands of clerical jobs, how the founders of Federal Express and similar companies are using the same technology to provide services that promise and track fast, reliable deliveries. No one could have imagined how to create a Thousands of people work in this industry today. If not millions at all skill levels. If innovation doesn’t drive the new out of the way, each wave of technology will continue to erode part of the workforce. In reality, however, developed economies have weathered alarming waves of innovation and, on average, have provided jobs to about 94-95 percent of those who wanted to work. Another way to glimpse the job creation that accompanies innovation is to note that nearly 60 percent of the jobs people have today didn’t exist in his 1940s.
A little bit of this history should give you some perspective. When automatic spinning and weaving machines were introduced into British textile manufacturing in the late 18th century, workers formed groups called Luddites to protect their jobs and sought to destroy the equipment. They failed, but in a relatively short period of time the equipment made them more efficient, they were able to employ more people than before, and they saw growth that was totally unexpected.
Back in the 1960s, a group of prominent academics, including a Nobel Prize winner, were concerned about robotics. They write that “new kinds of automation” have “destroyed” the once-secure “work-income ties.” John F. Kennedy addressed their concerns, speaking of “the dark threat of industrial restructuring, rising unemployment and deepening poverty.” He added that the administration had set up an automation bureau within the Labor Department to “maintain full employment in an era when automation has become synonymous.” His successors Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon expressed similar concerns. But despite these fears, the 1960s are now seen as something of a “golden age” for American manufacturing and high-paying jobs.
In the same decade, coastal populations fought against containerization. It certainly cut jobs, but at the same time it increased world trade by just over 2,000% in five years, and the number of jobs in shipping and cargo handling increased almost as dramatically. In the 1980s and 1990s, the proliferation of personal computers and word processors eliminated many office jobs. Most women were forced out of their jobs. However, these innovations have greatly increased the size and scope of clerical work, so that within a few years the number of women in paid employment will be far higher than before the introduction of these innovations. If so, you’re in a higher paying, more rewarding job.
There is little doubt that AI will bring chaos and difficulty. In this case, the same goes for those who have previously thought they were unaffected. Pain like this is inevitable, so there are good reasons for these people to adapt. But it cautions against stifling technology, as history has shown that innovation creates other, and perhaps better, jobs.
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