For now, let’s imagine that one day robots and artificial intelligence will outperform humans at every conceivable task, from waxing the floor to eyebrow waxing to philosophical speaking at the podium. Will there still be jobs for people?
Blogging economist Noah Smith says it’s possible. “In an age dominated by AI, it is very likely that ordinary humans will find abundant, well-paying jobs, often doing roughly the same types of work that they currently do.” he wrote on Substack on Sunday.
I introduced Smith’s argument to several economists who think deeply about these issues, and they were skeptical. But with so much pessimism about the future of work these days, Smith’s views are a welcome ray of sunshine. That’s why we’re taking this seriously.
Smith bases his case on one of the most beautiful theories in economics: comparative advantage. This boils down to “do what you do best.” This theory goes that even if Martha Stewart had an absolute advantage at ironing shirts (she’s better than anyone else in the world), she would still give up her time to ironing to others. This suggests that you should ask for help. In other words, it’s the production of a TV show. (This example was taken from a video by Marginal Revolution University.)
The relevance to artificial intelligence is clear. To maximize profits, the AI’s owner should let the AI do the things that humans are a million times better at, without worrying about the things that humans are only twice as good at. I would think so. This leaves room for humans to continue working for a living rather than receiving benefits.
Smith argues that even if AI becomes ultra-cheap, the theory of comparative advantage will still hold. As long as the computing power available to AI is a scarce resource, its owners will always want to make the most of it. I probably won’t be teaching yoga or writing this newsletter.
Problem solved! Or actually not. Mr Smith acknowledged that his own argument had “important and frightening” limitations. It’s the fact that people are competing with computers for resources. Resources consumed to employ people, such as office electricity, could be used more profitably to power more artificial intelligence.
Smith points to a 2013 paper by economist Tyler Cowen that shows that even though horses had a relative (though not absolute) advantage in pulling things, trucks were invented. pointed out that companies did not continue to use horses to transport goods. The horse was sent to a glue factory. Not a good idea for human workers.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Auter also cited the example of unwanted horses in an email response to my question. Human workers, he writes, “have real upkeep costs.” “Humans can therefore become a non-competitive factor of production in any activity.”
Autor said he doesn’t believe robots or AI will ever be better than humans in every way, but that’s the scenario we’re considering here. But if they do, “it is likely that workers will end up either being ‘too expensive to hire’ or earning too little to cover their own upkeep.” is writing.
Auter is faculty co-director of MIT’s Shaping the Future of Work initiative, along with fellow economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. Acemoglu told me in an email that he, like Orter, is optimistic about people’s continued role in the labor market. “The upper limit for the proportion of jobs that will be affected by AI and computer vision technologies over the next 10 years is less than 10%,” he wrote.
But like Autor, he said that even if AI is better than humans in every way, we shouldn’t expect human labor to gain or even maintain market power.
Ethan Mollick, professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, has published a new book, Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI, and says AI is exactly the kind of thing humans are proud of. He writes that he is very good at this. , creativity etc. “A study by economists Ed Felten, Manav Raj, Rob Seamans and others concluded that AI is the most rewarding, creative, and most highly educated job,” Mollick said. It’s in the book.
This means that the work that AI will leave to us humans will be scutwork. Molik himself is less pessimistic, but he tells me that anyone deeply involved with AI experiences “at least one existential crisis” in which their economic value as a living being is called into question. Told.
I asked Smith via email what he thought about Autor, Acemoglu and Molik’s comments. He writes that the future of human work depends on whether AI can consume all available energy. If not, “then humans would have some energy to expend, and the logic of comparative advantage would come into full effect.” It turns out that if we want our data centers to be protected, we don’t need a ton of job-specific regulations. We just need one regulation: limits on some of the energy that goes into data centers.”
So it wasn’t until I interviewed Pascual Restrepo, an associate professor of economics at Boston University, that I became optimistic about the job again. Mr. Autor recommended him because of his recent presentation on humans in the age of AI titled “You Won’t Be Missed.”
Restrepo likened the conquest of jobs by AI to a rising tide that sweeps over rocks one by one, until they are all submerged under water. “You can still take your time and call it work,” he said. “But that value will be a shrinking proportion of all the value created.”
While there are certainly comparative advantages, Restrepo said AI is better in every way, and if the price of computing continues to fall, nothing will stop it from taking over everything. We can still do the work, but at best we can save the AI’s computational resources by doing the work. If we use our poor brains on his one-hour problem, the AI won’t have to spend a second on that problem, and an AI like Martha Stewart can spend that moment doing what it does best. It will be. Creating enormous value from things that we can only remotely perceive today. AI owners are willing to pay for that service.
The compensation we receive in the form of goods and services may seem quite high by today’s standards. But much of that will be tiny compared to the overall wealth that will be created by AI, Restrepo said. Then people won’t need jobs. Work will no longer be the center of our lives. The bright side? If the benefits are widely shared (although this is not guaranteed), it will lead to a future of unimaginable luxury for everyone.
written by the reader
Dear readers, thank you for letting me know. coincidence in your life. Many of your stories were great. But as some skeptics have pointed out, sometimes even the most unlikely things do happen. From your email, I got the sense that perceiving coincidences as meaningful often comes from a longing for connection with deceased loved ones, old friends, or younger selves.
You wrote that the probability of rolling a 6 in 10 is as high as the probability of rolling a 6-2-4-5-1-3-2-5-4-6. Based on a statistical method called chi-square goodness of fit, I disagree. The probability of a series of 6s is very low, so you can guess which die you rolled, but the other patterns are very consistent with chance (97.7 percent chance that the die is fair). Human pattern bias is certainly real, but sometimes weird smells really do exist.
Shannon Walker
Indianapolis, Indiana
I’m a “just a coincidence” person. To illustrate, I recommend the hilarious Spurious Correlations website, full of meaningless coincidences. For example, cheddar cheese consumption in the United States is highly correlated with solar power generation in Haiti, and oil consumption in Azerbaijan is highly correlated with the distance between Neptune and Mercury.
brian brady
Seal Beach, California
I specialize in twin research.identical twins There are more “coincidences” than fraternal twins. The more rare a behavior is, the more likely it is to exhibit meaningful connections that may partially reflect a genetic basis. For example, identical twins who grew up apart met when she was 25 years old. Both twins used a rare Swedish toothpaste called Vademecum.
Nancy L. Segal
Fullerton, California
The author is a professor of psychology at California State University, Fullerton.
Regarding your article regarding settlements with real estate agents: As a recent seller of an Australian property, I paid 1.8% to a selling agent. When you want to buy real estate, you usually search online for property listings yourself or buy the Saturday newspaper that lists properties for sale. The operative word is “ourselves.” We do not pay other people to search for us or buy our properties. Therefore, we also do not pay buyer agent fees.
Khun Tan
sydney, australia
Why is personal responsibility never brought up in conversations about retirement? I’m 73 years old and living very comfortably in a condo in the city and a small summer farm in the countryside. I traveled around the world in her 28 year old, sleeping in the jungles of Thailand and caves in Crete when I needed to, and driving and trading on the streets of Hong Kong when I needed cash. Currently, the social security payments I receive are well below the national average, I have no pension plan and no minimum savings in the bank, but I have no debt. I wear designer clothes that I bought at a thrift store. I make my own coffee in the morning. I am a member of the Mutual Museum Association, which allows me to see some of the finest art for the cost of one museum membership fee. I don’t belong to a gym, but I do have a $6 exercise resistance band. It doesn’t cost money to do sit-ups or push-ups. It doesn’t cost anything to walk. There is no “crisis” here.
Matthew Cassis
Damariscotta, Maine
quote of the day
“Guns are not an argument.”
— Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)
