Everybody who pays attention knows that technology — especially automation and artificial intelligence — is about to change the world in ways that a lot of people won’t like.
There is scarcely any job that can’t be reduced to programmable steps; even a lot of engineering work is now done by AI-driven computer software. Certainly, most manual labor can be done by robots. Not in my lifetime, but almost surely within the life of the millennials, there is going to be a huge decline in employment. Perhaps 100-million people will be needed to design, assemble, and maintain the machines. They will have jobs, and so will boutique craftsmen and artists, and certain trades not readily susceptible of automation (plumbing, say).
And that’s it. With that change in our circumstances, there will — necessarily — be changes in the behavioral rules that guide our lives. Case closed. It is going to happen.
What will become of the people who lack the skills to compete for jobs designing, building, or maintaining the machines? Are they going to be allowed to starve to death? Not likely. They are the majority, and they’ll simply destroy the machines before they lie down and starve.
But this, in turn, has implications for how we live together. Who will enjoy the rewards of the Brave New World, and who will merely subsist? And what, by the way, is mere subsistence? What comforts does that imply? Food? Most of us, I am certain, would agree that it does. Medical care? Americans don’t seem to agree about that at all. Tickets to the latest Star Wars movie? And what about population? Will limits be imposed, since they imply a burden upon the working few, as already are found in some countries with high birth rates? And who will be allowed to own pets?
Well?
Seriously: We are on the way to huge social and cultural changes and, with that, mind-cracking ethical problems. I incline to think we will adopt, necessarily, some hybrid flavor of collectivism, a mish-mash socialism — but how will the necessary balance be maintained among competing parties when so many people are susceptible to the cynical demagogy of such as Donald Trump? How will society be protected against that? After all, the Electoral College has conspicuously failed already — in no small part because many Americans are resolved to return society to some fanciful Sunnybrook Republic that never existed anyhow.
There are going to be changes in what is meant by self-governance, and how we go about it.
We need to be thinking about this, and talking about this, now. Technology journalists are; both The Atlantic (also, here), and Mother Jones, have been paying attention to the issue. So, too, have philosophers.
And — What do you know? — so have engineers. Just last week IEEE, the world’s largest professional engineering organization, released ETHICALLY ALIGNED DESIGN: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Well-being with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. It’s not a prescriptive document, a set of standards, but mainly a set of conversation starters.
So let the conversation begin. The Brave New World is a lot closer than many Americans recognize, and we need to get ready.