Although digital technologies have mostly brought positive changes, there is also a dark side to progress. In a new column, the Center director Jeffrey Cole digs into the future of work.
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By Jeffrey Cole
In all the work we have done on the impact of digital technology over the past 20 years, I strongly believe the beneficial effects have outweighed the problems that have arisen.
My past columns reflect this generally-positive view of digital change.
But over the next few months, from time to time, I also want to look at the serious problems we see in the digital future and possible ways of solving those problems. I will take an extended look at privacy, hacking, the dark web, and a number of other issues.
I want to start with the problem that keeps me awake at night more than any other, and for which I see no real solution: the future of work.
Driverless cars (by their very name) have already put us on the path toward the slow elimination of every human driver’s job. The Amazon Go market model, while improving the efficiency of shopping, also eventually leads to the end of all checker jobs. Already about 20 percent of legal research can be done by machines. Within 25 years, half of all surgeries will likely be performed by mechanical “doctors.” Artificial intelligence can already do a better job reading some X-rays and MRIs than humans.
New industries, new jobs
Historically, new technologies result in losses of jobs in old industries but create more jobs in the new industries. At the turn of the twentieth century, several million Americans made their living through horses: carriage makers, blacksmiths, veterinarians, people who clean up after horses, and others. Today, only a small percentage of those jobs exist, but more jobs were created through the rise of automobile manufacturing and associated industries.
In contrast, moving forward new industries will take jobs from old ones, but they will not similarly create more jobs. Jobs at all levels will be affected. Our work sees 30 to 40 million jobs lost in the U.S. McKinsey recently estimated 850 million lost jobs globally.
As we lose 40 million jobs, we may create three to five million new ones. The indisputable truth is that the digital future will bring massive job losses.
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The future of work will be the defining social problem of the next 100 years and beyond. Many experts and friends feel confidently that this problem will find its own solution, since it always has before. I’m not that confident and don’t see the solutions.
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Millions of people will have enormous amounts of free time. Some of my optimistic friends point out that this will result in more poetry, great literature, and other expressions of creativity flourishing at the highest levels since the Renaissance.
While this outpouring of great creativity may be true for a small group (three to five percent), the sad truth is that most of us will fritter away time watching television or playing video games.
Universal Basic Income?
For the first time, societies are beginning to seriously debate about universal basic income (UBI) where every citizen receives a minimum payment from the government. Switzerland put UBI to a vote ($29,000 a year). It failed. Finland experimented with UBI with very mixed and generally unimpressive results.
The political and financial obstacles to UBI in America are almost completely insurmountable. Even if we got past those problems, and — as of January 1, 2023 (a random date ) — guaranteed every American a basic income of $50,000 a year, that would only take care of a small part of the problem.
Fifty thousand dollars a year would ensure that everyone was fed and had proper shelter. The much bigger problem is, what would be our purpose in life? For some people, work is what we tolerate so that we can take care of our families and ourselves. For many of us, work provides structure in our lives and gives us both purpose and a sense of accomplishment.
Lack of work, with or without UBI, leads to lack of structure and loss of purpose. Initially, that would mean more television and video games. But after a year or so, it could lead to depression, alcoholism, opiate addiction, poor health, and even suicide. These are precisely the kinds of problems we have seen in the parts of America where factories and coal mines have closed or where job losses have been chronic and prolonged.
Before we get to this point, we have to ask ourselves: what can we do? Are we willing to pay more and do things less efficiently in order to keep people employed?
Last year, I spoke about these issues at a conference of C-level executives in Tasmania. One CEO raised her hand and pointed out that “here in Australia we’re different. We will continue to do business with a local merchant who is more expensive than an automated store because we value the jobs in our community.”
It would be wonderful if that were true. Unfortunately, there are almost no examples of customers continuing to patronize more expensive local stores when the same goods and services are available at lower cost across the street at Walmart or Costco, or online at Amazon.
The skyscraper story
There is an old anti-union joke that makes this point.
A developer is starting to build a skyscraper. He goes to the construction site with the union foreman and sees a worker in a bulldozer clearing the land. The foreman says to the developer, “Don’t you realize ten men with shovels could be doing that work?” The developer looks at him dismissively and responds, “Why not 100 men with spoons?”
Although you have to ignore the anti-union basis, the story raises an important point: are we willing to do things less efficiently and more expensively to save jobs?
History does not provide an optimistic answer.
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Historically, new technologies result in losses of jobs in old industries but create more jobs in new industries. At the turn of the twentieth century, several million Americans made their living through horses: carriage makers, blacksmiths, veterinarians, people who clean up after horses, and others. In contrast, moving forward new industries will take jobs from old ones but they will not then create more jobs. Our work sees as many as 40 million job losses over the next 30 to 40 years.
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In future columns, as we look at the enormous challenges of loss of privacy, destructive hacking and more, there are scenarios that can solve some or all of these problems.
I’m not a pessimist, but I see no solution to the problem of job loss through digital technology. Already students are asking, “Which jobs will be there when I get to the middle of my career?”
There are no good answers.
The future of work will be the defining social problem of the next 100 years and beyond. Many experts and friends feel confidently that this problem will find its own solution, since it always has before. I’m not that confident and don’t see the solutions.
This problem, left untreated for a year or two, will lead to frustration and lost opportunity. Ignored for a decade or so, it will lead to addiction, crime and suicide. Left to fester for a generation, it will lead to civil unrest.
Over the coming months, we will take a close look at how the future of work is progressing and whether any possible solutions to the problem begin to emerge.
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Jeffrey Cole is the founder and director of The Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg.
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October 24, 2018