Technological Unemployment and the Basic Income Guarantee
1. James J. Hughes Ph.D.
Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
Public Policy Studies, Trinity College, Hartford CT
James.Hughes@trincoll.edu
2. 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)
John Maynard Keynes
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
3. 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
4.
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.
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.
Innovation reduces the cost of inputs and goods, stimulates greater demand, creating more employment.
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
6.
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
9. 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
10. Probability of Computerisation
Recreational therapists
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
Estate agents
0.86
Technical writers
0.89
Retail sales assistants
Accountants
0.94
Telemarketers
0.99
0.003
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.
0.81
0.92
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
14. 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
15.
Even diagnosing, prescribing and surgery can be automated
Robot
Telepresence
nurses aides doctors
Robotic surgery
Robot home care
16.
Expert diagnostic and treatment systems used by nurses and
PAs do better than doctors for most conditions
17. Home and medical telemonitoring of heart,
blood pressure, blood sugar, urinalysis,
prescription compliance, etc.
18.
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
19.
Half of all employment is involved in production, transport
or sales of things
Diffusion of desktop manufacturing could be very rapid
21. Jobs requiring human empathy and insight are
probably going to be the last to automate
But still..
Robot
prostitutes
AI Counseling
Smartphone
confession
22.
So far, education has determined who is most vulnerable
But un- and underemployment of college grads is rising
23.
24. At least those with education and affluence are
Life expectancy for poor females is declining
28.
The policy debate in US has not caught up
Austerity is macroeconomic dead-end
29.
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
30. Protecting Employment
Re-distributing Employment
Creating Employment
Enhancing Human Workers
Techno-Utopian Proposals
Basic Income Guarantee
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
31.
Machine bans will
be proposed
Agricultural
subsidies &
protectionism
NJ’s ban on selfserve gasoline
High costs
Lower quality and
convenience
Reduced
competitiveness
32. Ming Dynasty Seapower
Tokugawa Isolation
Higher costs
Lower quality
1853 - Comm. Perry enters Japan
Reduced international
competitiveness
Geopolitical vulnerability
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
34.
Re-distributing employment with jobsharing
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
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
35.
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
36. US and European
militaries have been
shrinking
U.S. Army projects
that military robotics
will displace a
quarter of combat
soldiers by 2030
37. Could we every catch
up?
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
38. Post-scarcity super-
abundance
Free molecular
manufacturing
Universal stock ownership
in post-Singularity stock
market
Charity from the super-rich
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies 2014
39.
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."
40.
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
41.
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)
42.
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and Emerging Technologies
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