Friday, March 24, 2017

Humans Need Not Apply?

By Robert Brink

The other day I swung by a job site to say hi to some CLAC members, one of whom was working the controls of a giant crane-like machine moving concrete against the forces of gravity. I was struck by how efficiently this skilled pump truck operator was able to get huge amounts of concrete to the third floor of what was shaping into a large apartment complex. A generation ago, it would have taken dozens of labourers with wheelbarrows and ramps, or pullies and buckets, to do what he and his machine did in an afternoon.

A recent study out of Oxford University estimates that up to 47 percent of current jobs could disappear because of computers and automation. A recent article in the National Post by Alex Panetta lays out some scary scenarios, relying on the Oxford study and a new book by Jerry Kaplan, called, frighteningly, Humans Need Not Apply.

Predictions of societal upheaval caused by automation and tools have been around as long as automation and tools themselves. Luddites famously fought against the loom and the loss of jobs for weavers by smashing weaving machinery. No doubt the first shovel had some early diggers worried that they'd be out of work once shovels caught on.

While there have been winners and losers, the big technological disruptions in the past did not lead to a reduction of labour needs on aggregate. Needs have shifted and society has adapted to shovels and looms, combines and typewriters, calculators and cordless drills. In fact, many tech innovations have led to more leisure time without jeopardizing livelihoods. Workers kept working. Fewer typesetters, more TV crews. Fewer horse and buggy drivers, more mechanics.

The question is whether this time the technological upheaval we are experiencing is different and whether large-scale loss of work looms on the horizon. Steel manufacturing employs about a third the workers it did two generations ago, not because of foreign competition—Canada produces about the same amount of steel as back then—but because of automation. Stable year-round alternative careers haven’t always been there for those with skills suited for that type of work.

Other industries could be hit just as hard. Self-driving vehicles could upend the trucking industry, and there are more than a quarter million truck drivers in Canada. Even doctors and lawyers could see large parts of their jobs replaced by databases and computer interfaces. Panetta warns that even blog posts in the future may be written by bots (I have no problem with that one!).

While many CLAC members are well-positioned in industries unlikely to need fewer humans—the human hands and hearts of healthcare providers, for example, provide a lot that robots can't—members in some other sectors could see real changes in the next generation, such as drivers, or the labourers replaced by the concrete pump.

Since smashing the machines, Luddite-style, is unlikely to win in the end, people have started turning their minds to solutions, in case there is a big drop in demand for labour. On a personal level, we need to be trainable, flexible, and willing to adapt. We need to anticipate changes, rather than just react to them. We need to plan financially during good times for the possibility that they may soon end.

One society-wide response getting tossed around a lot lately is the guaranteed annual income (GAI), also known as negative income tax or basic income. With GAI, everyone is provided a certain amount of income, funded perhaps by increases in productivity, or tech taxes. Small-scale experiments are already underway. Reduced work hours, with income potentially being kept up by tech-assisted productivity, is another alternative on the macro level.

At CLAC, we see work itself as valuable—not just for the income it brings. How we would do as a society and as individuals with less paid work needs a lot of thought. Maybe other human endeavours can fruitfully and productively fill that time and meet those needs.

In any case, if technological advances lead to a small number of people prospering, and millions who previously had steady jobs suddenly out of work or facing a sharp decline in income, the social and economic upheaval could be unprecedented. The industrial revolution of the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century led to the biggest shakeup of economic life in human history. The fallout of the computer/automation revolution we’re in the middle of could be even bigger.

As Yogi Berra said, “Predictions are hard, especially about the future.” We know the world of work will be different five years from now, ten years from now, and a generation from now. How it will be different, and how much human work will be needed, we really don’t know.

If history repeats itself, the technological changes will bring plenty of upheaval, but also many new opportunities. Workers and unions need to do their best to be prepared to take advantage of them.

Humans Need Not Apply?

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