by Jules Older Much — so much — has been published, televised, blogged and podcast about artificial intelligence, universally known as AI. Much of that deluge has focused on AI and the future of work. I've occasionally added to this downpour, e.g. my thoughts on AI and psychotherapy and illustration.
The bulk of prognostication has focused on two themes:
- Will jobs be lost to AI and if so, which jobs?
- Will jobs be created by AI and if so, which jobs?
I think there's a bigger issue here, but first, my hunch about those two themes:
- Oh, plenty of jobs will be lost — are already being lost. And they'll cover an almost unbelievably broad swath of toilers including accountants, artists, city planners, photographers, physicians, psychotherapists, scientists and writers.
- Yes, jobs, particularly AI-related jobs, will be created, but their numbers will be tiny, almost infinitesimally small, compared with the numbers of jobs lost.
OK, not much new there. Others have celebrated or bemoaned (more bemoaned than celebrated) the AI transformation. But I've seen nothing on what I strongly suspect is the bigger — the much, much bigger — picture: While we now consider jobs/employment/work the basis of successful human endeavor, as the AI Age really sets in, we’re gonna’ need something new and different to replace it.
What is ‘it’? My simple and undoubtedly disputable definition is that, basically, a job is money paid in exchange for time and effort. That ‘it’ is what makes the world go ‘round.
Yes, there are probable exceptions. Deep in the jungles of Africa, high atop the mountains of South America, on the coasts of remote islands in the Pacific, if a job is money paid in exchange for time and effort, there are no jobs, and people still get by or at least scrape by. But from China to Chile, Finland to France, Singapore to Slovenia, people expect — and are expected to — work.
Here's my prediction: Thanks to AI, the essential concept of work is going to largely disappear in the surprisingly near future. What will become of the workers? How will they put food on table, roof over head? How will they lead lives of meaning and not die of boredom? How will they spend their days? Support their families? Pay their bills?
I do not know. The many smart folks I've asked do not know. Here, though, are three possibilities:
- Governments will do nothing meaningful. The ultra-rich will get ultra-richer, and the rest will go hungry until they either perish or create a revolution, an uprising, a mutiny, an insurrection. Your choice of descriptor will reflect which side of the AI transformation you're on.
- Engaging with thinkers, sages and other job-endangered citizens, governments will search for ways to make the change support their people. The search will, of course, rely heavily on AI.
- AI will replace governments. AI will decide what's best for the now-jobless people. (And will almost certainly stop calling itself AI. TI — transformative intelligence — is a likely choice for the new name.)
If I'm right about this job-deficient future, visionaries, philosophers, politicians, planners and governments need to think seriously about how people mostly without jobs and work will thrive. And the time to start thinking about what will replace jobs and work is right n-o-w.
So think I. What think you?
Jules Older
SIDEBAR
To keep this clean and above reproach, I've not used AI in writing or researching this article. Jules Older
Jules Older has been a disc jockey and medical educator, clinical psychologist and TV villain, writer and filmmaker. He created the award-winning course, Writing For Real. Jules’ work has won awards in four countries. He’s lived in two of them — the US and New Zealand. Jules’ latest kid’s book is Special Ed and the White Force.
To support vital journalism, access our archives and get unique features like our award-winning profiles, Book of Lists & Business-to-Business Directory, subscribe HERE!
