Robot workforce: devil’s work or godsend?
With the advent of robots and artificial intelligence, there’s a distinct possibility that machines will eventually replace humans as the primary source of productive labor. This would by no means be limited to skilled and unskilled labor, for even as you read this, accountants and engineers are already being displaced. Maybe some day your family physician will look like C3P0, and a corporate executive board will be a printed-circuit board.
Machines don’t demand paychecks, days off, vacations, health care or pensions. All they need is a power source, routine maintenance and occasional upgrading — all dutifully supplied by other machines. Initially, this might seem a windfall to business operators and stockholders: No more payrolls, pure profit! But profit comes from business revenue, which comes from sales, which happen when customers have money to spend, which comes from paychecks earned by doing productive work. But if all the work is done by robots and computers, then displaced humans won’t have income to spend. And it’s a sure bet the machines won’t buy what they make.
Production can continue around the clock, but if there’s no one to buy all that productive output, business will cease. No demand. No sales. No revenues. No profits. With full warehouses and empty pockets, the machines go idle. Stocks and bonds become worthless. Banks go broke. Commerce freezes and the economy collapses, making the Great Depression look like a transient ripple. Dead end!
However, there are fixes available. All that’s really broken here is the money-cycle link between production and consumption. Re-establish that link before it’s too late, and humanity needn’t kiss prosperity and civilization goodbye.
A very simplified example of one way to accomplish this might be to make all adults automatic shareholders in a broad portfolio of active businesses — perhaps in the form of a grand mutual fund. The fund’s dividends and gains become the new paychecks, which can be spent as needed, or reinvested if preferred. Customer spending generates business revenue, which generates profit, which becomes dividend checks, which enable more spending. The crucial link in the cash-flow chain is restored, and the production-consumption cycle can continue unabated.
The key difference is there’ll be much less work for humans to do. As a result, some people might feel their lives have lost purpose and meaning. So take up a new hobby, sport or study. Work if it pleases you, or if you want the extra income. There will still be occupations requiring human talent, intellect, empathy, humor — assuming we don’t pursue automation to an absurd extreme. We’ll still need artists and artisans, comedians and clergy, musicians and magicians, journalists and judges, scientists and inventors, philosophers and politicians.
Oh, lost you at “politicians,” did I? Well, maybe with automated fact-checking, we’ll at least become better informed in choosing them. Moreover, no machine can match the magnificent sound of a live symphony orchestra, create a Michelangelo or a Monet, serve humanity as humanely as Albert Schweitzer, or be a friend, spouse or parent as loving as you or I. Best of all, we’ll have the time to devote to such pursuits. Purpose and meaning restored.