Where is the revolution taking us?
If we can’t master the digital revolution, it may spawn a different revolt
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times . . . ” — Charles Dickens
I don’t want to be an alarmist, but when studies emanating from organizations such as Oxford University and the Brookings Institute say nearly half of today’s jobs are “at risk” of being computerized over the next 20 years, well, it’s time to pay attention.
You know this is a serious issue when corporate-dominated organizations like the World Economic Forum are paying close attention to the rapid development of robots and artificial intelligence and their potential impact on labour markets around the globe.
The Forum’s 2016 annual meeting was devoted to addressing the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Participants predicted this digital revolution, together with other socio-economic changes, will transform labour markets. Over the next five years it could create a net loss of more than five million jobs in 15 major economies.
And for those of you who think the talk of advanced robotics and intelligent computers is science fiction, think again.
In 1992, Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, predicted a computer would beat a chess champion by 1998. He said computers and phones would access information wirelessly and we would be able to talk to our phones and get Siri-like voice assistance. All of these and more of his predictions have materialized.
Today, Kurzweil says by 2029 we can expect computers to outsmart even the most intelligent human. They will reach what’s called the “Turing test” point, that is, they will self-learn from experience at phenomenal rates, speak many languages and bring both blessings and unintended consequences.
He thinks most diseases will be subdued because nanobots will become smarter than traditional medical technology. Normal human eating will be replaced by nanosystems (sounds delicious). Self-driving cars will take over the roads and people will not be allowed to drive on the highways.
We already enjoy benefits from artificial intelligence: health-care diagnosis and treatment, machine learning, computer games, and production robotics to name a few.
But there is a dark side to all this. As AI becomes more advanced and robots reach the Turing test point, how will they know right from wrong? How do we protect ourselves from the creatures we are creating as they eclipse our capability and control?
Leaders in the field, such as Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and Space X CEO Elon Musk, agree the development of full artificial intelligence is “summoning a demon.” They are alarmed that more effort is being invested in creating intelligent robots than is being allocated to imbuing them with moral preparedness.
Since the early days of the first Industrial Revolution, the “creative destruction” characteristic of capitalism has spawned dramatic change. The introduction of the steam engine, the printing press and the factory system displaced countless workers and eradicated long-established trades. But it also created countless new job opportunities, and at a slow enough pace to avoid mass unemployment.
The digital revolution may be different. Today, technological progress is so rapid that economies have far less time to adapt by creating new jobs in sectors not being impacted. The computer combined with the “internet of everything ” allows waves of new technology to be scaled up rapidly and cheaply.
It’s helped create a questionable concentration of corporate wealth in high-tech giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. They have a combined market capitalization of $2.5 trillion. Yet together they employ only about 600,000 people. Walmart alone, with one-tenth their market cap, employs more than 2.3 million people around the world.
Some governments and corporations are responding by trying to reform capitalism. Trying to make it kinder and gentler. Trying to make it distribute its largess more evenly across economies like Canada’s where income and wealth disparity is increasingly pronounced.
And where it prompts the rise of simplistic political solutions. But as Donald Trump would say, with genuine surprise, “It’s complex.”
For example, raising the minimum wage may lift thousands of unskilled workers out of poverty in the short term. But longer term, it can encourage more research and development into automating these unskilled jobs out of existence.
Experiments with guaranteed annual incomes are underway in several countries. Ontario plans to test a “basic annual income” for residents in three cities. There is no assurance that those who qualify will seek additional employment, or contribute time to improving their community. It may turn out to be nothing more than an opioid for the masses.
Last year, a group of Silicon Valley leaders released an “Open Letter on the Digital Economy.” It says, “The digital revolution is the best economic news on the planet. But the evidence is clear that this progress is accompanied by some thorny challenges.”
They suggest an aggressive public policy agenda, including lifelong learning, entrepreneurial initiatives and ways to enhance productivity and wealth while creating broad-based opportunity.
Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. During earlier revolutions we had decades to adjust. This time we have to act quickly or the consequences will be adjudicated in the streets.