Before Skynet
I was reading a 2019 white paper by Helmut Linde regarding the state and future of artificial intelligence (AI). Without going too far down the technical rabbit hole, he distinguished between two types of artificial intelligence: Narrow AI and Strong AI. Strong AI is the stuff of I, Robot and Terminator — the rise of sentient machine intelligence that, for various reasons (depends on the movie, book, or conspiracy theory), end up turning on mankind and destroying us.
While Strong AI has significant points of concern, it may still be a while off. Some proponents say as early as 2030. If they figure out how to mimic even a stripped-down version of the human brain, that may be possible. Like most technology, there will be unintended consequences.
It is the Narrow AI that most concerns me at the moment. As I was reading the paper, I was reminded that Narrow AI, that pursuit of artificial intelligence that focuses on software code, algorithms, and very specific applications, has been around for a very long time — if you recall the movie about Alan Turing, during World War II, his machine was a working implementation of Narrow AI. When I was a young man, there was a little program that I enjoyed playing with for a while, LISA — if I recall correctly, that was a form of finite analysis algorithm. It was entertaining, if a bit kludgy back in those days — as many things are in their infancy. If I’m not mistaken, it has grown into a role with real-world applications today. Regardless, we are now fully immersed in a rising sea of Narrow AI: robot call- and chat-bots — that most of us would like to simply dial ‘0’ to get around, manufacturing robots, self-driving cars, web search engines, social media direction, and marketing, to mention a few.
This is what I started thinking about while reading this paper. I suspect that there are actually intelligent people pondering the implications but, since I had a random neuron fire, I thought I’d let it spill out in writing. As a caveat, I do not want this to come across as some article just written to provoke fear or conspiratorial blather. These are just preliminary musings about the less desirable implications of automation on society and how we can promote our brand of democracy as it works out. If you recall Pinky and the Brain (if you don’t look it up — you’ll enjoy it), I would probably aspire to be Pinky.
Our practice of democracy revolves around our capitalistic economic system. I am all for capitalism — despite a general feeling that it will, left to its own devices, grind up and discard a man just as readily as any other economic system. If you listen to the rhetoric in different seasons, it seems that capitalism may be more important than democracy. Of course, in other seasons, it appears that democracy gets the upper hand. There probably should always be this juxtaposition.
However, there are a few implications of Narrow AI and our implementation of capitalistic democracy that popped into mind as I read Mr. Linde’s paper. I would like you to ponder them along with me. I will likely conflate a few different circumstances as I go along. You can take issue as you wish. Here they are in no particular order of significance.
The first is the financial well-being of our citizenry. We have seen the increase of robotic building machines in industry. This turn of events has led to increasing production with diminishing ‘human resources’. We know that for work to be done, there have to be workers. We also know that workers tend to be the largest expense of any enterprise. So, it is only logical that, to reduce costs, at some point, you have to replace as many expensive workers with less expensive workers as you can. This, in our recent context, has led to outsourcing, moving entire industries to less-costly (yes, for a lot of bad reasons) countries, and automation.
Even as we get past the visceral response to this, there is still the problem of the displaced people still existing. As a capitalist society, how do we deal with the continued production of stuff while growing sectors have fewer or no means of generating income to buy all that stuff? In my lifetime, I have seen communities go — shall I say, deteriorate — from a mix of retail, farming, and manufacturing to predominantly retail — as a result of industry moving abroad and farm policy resulting in land consolidated in fewer hands. The effect on the communities is noticeable. The standard of living drops visibly. Now, I don’t personally think we need to be producing so much stuff destined for landfills (I think Jim Carey had a good line about that in his rendition of The Grinch), but that is a different story for a different day. The issue remains. There are still people that need to survive — without available jobs.
Now, before you accuse me of being a Luddite, I am aware that, historically, introduction of new technology and automation has, after a short disruptive period, actually increased employment opportunities and living standards. So, I’m not taking hammers to the framework. But, given the nature of even Narrow AI, with its potential for eventual self-care or support by other Narrow AI (think automated lubricant lines programmed to administer ‘oil’ at predetermined trigger points to larger robots that are building things — or some such), fewer and fewer people will be required in the mix. A couple other studies I looked at propose that Narrow AI -sparked unemployment could be as much as thirty percent — worldwide.
It doesn’t matter where those job losses are concentrated, if a third of your population is unemployed, perhaps with no rapid means of rejoining the workforce (creating and maintaining the Narrow AI will require some specialized skills — skills like algebra which, with even a cursory observation of middle-schoolers and their parents’ social media, is not subject-matter that most care about ), life could get ugly. The roving gangs of post-apocalyptic fantasies could be a reality (there have been such occurrences even in our short history). In a society that tends to view the unemployed as non-contributors and the financial support of the same as some form of robbery, how would we deal with thirty percent unemployment? The financial shenanigans and outcomes of the recent COVID shutdowns and stimulus programs have shown that we are not yet ready for such an event. What restructuring would have to take place for democracy for all to continue in such a situation? And, if it would work then, would it be beneficial now?
As we watch our outworking of capitalism, we see that the big players get bigger — by offering cheaper stuff that the populace can afford, by pushing out the small businesses by means of volume, marketing, the top-level bankroll, and regulations that give them the advantage. I applaud individuals who have an idea, start a business, and grow it. However, at some point, growth may create unintentional bullies — supposing even the most righteous of intentions of the owners and shareholders (which is another causative agent in our discussion — for another day). At any rate, would craftsmen then become the guerrilla fighter in the new economy? If some (I don’t believe all would) of the economically displaced were to create small businesses that produce stuff (sewing, furniture making, metalworking, …), would we (those who still work for the growing institutions) show them value by purchasing from them — think the current ‘buy-local’ movement? What if it cost us more? What if the product wasn’t as uniform or sparkly as the thing on tv? Would the bigger kids on the block give them room or squash them — as they have to this point? The other side of that thought is that small businesses tend to exist for survival needs — where research and development seem to require the luxury of time and deep pockets of the larger organizations.
In the current tangle of capitalism and income, at least since the wind-down of WWII, health care has been primarily tied to employment. That may be a good solution as long as there is full employment and a means for all businesses to be able to provide the same. However, there are at least two issues with this, as I see it. First, the notion seems to rule out what we know as small business. Small businesses rarely (and I only add that caveat because, despite not knowing of any, there may be examples) begin with the ability to pay for worker health care and such. I know there are many in my position of having a single-person business that relies on their spouse’s benefits in order to have healthcare. Having to pay for healthcare in our current model would make such ventures short-lived. Second, if there is a relatively sudden 30 percent unemployment, what do we do when one-third of our people get no healthcare. They are unemployed. They don’t have income to purchase anything. Lack of income doesn’t mean having to juggle payments between electricity, food, and medicine. That is fixed income. That is poverty. Lack of income means you don’t get any of them — and if it goes on long enough, you lose the house, car, and any other form of first-world security (and means of progress) that you had previously acquired. Recent responses to COVID have shown us that we may have few in government who are thinking about long-term solutions to such problems — generating unintended consequences by the short-term, highly politicized attempts they did make — which will also have longer tailed fiscal consequences. Of course, any talk of providing health care or the means to acquire it outside of employment currently meets with yowls of socialism. Perhaps, if we aren’t smart enough to come up with a better system (how did insurance become such a lucrative business that actually provides no tangible benefit), we should just accept that the ‘haves’ will also be able to live healthy lives while the ‘have nots’ will die earlier and perhaps more painfully — and that is just the luck of the draw. How many ‘have nots’ would we have to have before there was an uprising? How many currently comfortable people, suddenly finding themselves among the powerless and voiceless, would it take before the last remaining social tactic was implemented? From my Christian background, I understand that society’s answers aren’t the only answers — and the majority are not Christian. Are we going to start building hospitals and such again to care for the sick and injured in our country? Will those who have come to realize lucrative returns on medical practice allow for such charity — when it is in direct competition? Will the staunch capitalists view it as some form of socialism — rather than ministry — or even humanity?
Another challenge that I wondered about when reading Mr. Linde’s paper was, in the advent of Narrow AI job loss, how would humanity identify itself? We know that we are more than our jobs. But that thought seems only makes its way forward when we have jobs — whether it be working for another man or for ‘ourselves’. We maintain our caste system, if I may use that term, based on our jobs. That seems to define much of who we are — our place in the capitalistic society. Not as freemen in a democracy but specific cogs in the economic machine. Again, don’t misunderstand me, I believe in the value of work. I’ve been intimately familiar with it (for income) since I was nine. But I’m not sure I believe that work is intrinsically valuable. It provides an outlet for value — but again, that’s another story for another day. It would be silly to say we should value people by other measures. We should. But, in the outworking of daily life, most of us don’t — at least not consistently. So, when a big chunk of our neighbors, which may include you and me, suddenly lose our means to provide for ourselves, how do we ascribe value to them? Words matter — but they cannot be the full measure.
Thanks for enduring so long. I may have gotten a little carried away. To summarize: If the forecasts are correct, when Narrow AI automates work with one result being 30 percent unemployment, how do we survive as a capitalist democracy and answer the following questions:
- Do non-working humans matter? Do we feed, clothe, and house those who can no longer, by design of our systems, do so for themselves? Or do we just build security structures to ensure their despair doesn’t intrude on our peace?
- Is healthcare a right or a privilege? Is it ok to claim certain care for myself while allowing others to suffer and die because I can’t, or won’t, imagine another system?
- Can I see the value of a man regardless of his employment status? If not, are other measures, like race, religion, national origin, likely?
I think I know what these answers should be. I know, most of the time, how to respond on an individual level. I am struggling with the ‘how’ on a national scale.
