“Can you believe people actually used to work?”
Some day in the not-too-distance future, people will say words like these.
There is a moment in humanity’s future that is approaching. And in this moment in time, people will no longer have careers or work full-time jobs.
A common thread of argument is that “there will always be work for people to do.” To some degree, this may be true. But such optimism seems misguided if one can envision the potential for intelligent computers to surpass the abilities of mankind in all but few domains. Sure, a niche of humanity will work. But make no mistake, the majority will be unemployed, replaced by machines more efficient than they could ever be.
The problem is that it’s hard to predict what will happen with artificial intelligence, and thus hard to predict how long this moment will last. There are at least two extreme outcomes to consider, and an infinite number of possibilities in between.
We do not know how rapidly artificial intelligence will progress. On one hand, there’s a chance that the time between the creation of the first machine with human-level general intelligence and the singularity will be infinitesimally small. That is, the rate of advancement of artificial intelligence will be so great that shortly after developing such an AI, that very same AI will begin to make its own advancements with impeccable speed and success. Such an AI might modify itself, leading to a superintelligent being that wrestles control from and enslaves mankind. Clearly, such an outcome is more concerning than the unemployment rate.
Many want you to believe that we can just merge with machines and live happily ever after. I think many would agree that this transhumanism fairytale is not a dream but a nightmare.
But another real possibility is that we don’t reach such a level in artificial intelligence or biotechnology for a long time. And during that lengthy period of time, we continue to improve current methods of machine learning, computer vision, robotics, and computer reasoning to a point where computers and robots are a cheaper and superior option for most work-related tasks. In some ways, although this scenario is less horror film-esque than the one described above, it’s just as disconcerting because it raises a question: what value will human beings have in such a world?
The social challenges that await us in the coming age are frightening. Many will not be able to work, thus they will not be able to support themselves financially. So, who will feed them? Many technology companies are experimenting with approaches to funding and delivering basic income. But has communism and socialism ever ended well? Meanwhile, a capitalistic approach will likely ensure mass poverty and homelessness. If we manage to keep control of AI, it seems that the possibility of an ultra surveillance state emerging, utilizing its ownership and control of sophisticated AI, to form a dictatorship unlike anything seen historically is increasingly plausible due to the power of this technology.
Those working in artificial intelligence want you to believe that there is a real opportunity to use the technology to reduce human suffering and free people from something they’ve been chained to: work. According to these thinkers, freed from the slavery of having to earn an income, we’d be living in a truly new age — potentially a "utopian" one. However, it seems to me that the complexity of managing artificial intelligence is drastically greater than the predictability of such technology. If anything, artificial intelligence will promise a utopia to its inventors but result in a dystopia for those who do not serve it.
