Summary
Past waves of automation did not render human labor obsolete; instead, they generated additional jobs. However, with the democratization of AI, enabling virtually anyone to acquire, access, and develop AI technologies with minimal expertise and cost, is the situation different this time around? Research indicates that more than 50 percent of jobs are at risk of displacement in this “second machine age.” At current, the world is divided between technological optimists, who believe that unemployment caused by technological advancement is short-term, and technological pessimists, who argue that technological unemployment is irreversible. Who is correct and who is mistaken?
This policy paper explores:
(1) The key arguments concerning technological unemployment, along with the fallacy known as the Luddite Fallacy.
(2) Economical and philosophical issues such as inelastic demand, market saturation, market monopoly and monopsony, historical determinism, and human biases in reports on the future of work.
(3) “Bullshit Jobs” within the capitalistic framework.
(4) The effectiveness of existing proposals and plans from local governments addressing technological unemployment.
(5) Training and retraining of graduate and employees, and whether there are skills that are immune to technological unemployment.
(6) Universal Basic Income and social welfare policies.
(7) The values and centrality of work, as well as alternative visions of the future of work.