Anything
politicians say should be taken with a huge sack of salt. However,
even a stopped clock is right two times a day.
An
American politician is concerned that A.I. could see
unemployment drastically affected by Artificial Intelligence.
‘Artificial
intelligence and automation technologies pose a threat to nearly 100
million jobs in the US over the next decade, according to a report
released by Senator Bernie Sanders.
The
report suggests the disruption will be widespread, affecting both
white- and blue-collar professions.
According
to Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions, AI and automation could replace 40% of
registered nurses, 47% of truck drivers, 64% of accountants, 65% of
teaching assistants, and 89% of fast food workers.
“The
agricultural revolution unfolded over thousands of years. The
industrial revolution took more than a century,”
the report said. “Artificial
labor could reshape the economy in less than a decade.”
The
warning contrasts with the stance of the Trump administration, which
has championed American leadership in AI development, arguing that
losing the technological race to China poses a national security
threat.
In
an opinion piece for Fox News accompanying the report, Sanders
questioned the motives behind these massive investments, noting that
“some
of the very wealthiest people in the world,”
including Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos,
are pouring hundreds of billions into the technology.
He
warned that the “artificial
intelligence and robotics being developed by these multi-billionaires
today will allow corporate America to wipe out tens of millions of
decent-paying jobs, cut labor costs and boost profits.”
Sanders
argued that the technology is being leveraged primarily to increase
corporate profits and concentrate wealth, citing executives who have
announced significant investments in automation concurrently with
mass layoffs and other cost-cutting measures.
The
senator warned that workers in manufacturing, trucking, and taxi
services face a particularly severe impact from the rapid advancement
of self-driving projects by automakers and tech companies.
He
also expressed scepticism that their goal was to uplift the “60%
of our people who live paycheck-to-paycheck”
and believes the true driver is because “investing
in AI and robotics will increase their wealth and power
exponentially.”
The
trend is already underway, with corporate giants Amazon and Walmart
having eliminated tens of thousands of positions as they intensify
automation.’
The
below is from the Socialist Standard October 2023.
‘‘Vinod
Khosla,
the businessman, venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun
Microsystems, told the On Technology podcast that AI would lead to
fewer jobs but would increase productivity so greatly that it would
lift economic growth. There would be greater redistribution of wealth
to even out income equality and he predicted that in 25 years’
time, 64 per cent of all jobs would be capable of being done by AI:
‘There will be enough to afford a minimal standard of living for
everyone, to pay them to live and do things that are useful, but not
in today’s jobs.’” (Times,
22 August)
We
have been told this before. Nearly 60 years ago an article in the
January 1965 Socialist
Standard on
‘Automation
in Perspective’
noted:
‘A
writer in Sunday
Citizen (6
Dec. 1964), Mr. Stanley Baron, after he had talked “to the top
brains in Britain” made the forecast that before the end of the
century, “in every industrial country, certainly in the West, most
of the essential work will be performed by about 20 per cent of the
people—chiefly the most intelligent. The rest of us will work only
as much as we wish—or as much as society requires’”
So
what went wrong? Basically, a failure to take into account that we
are living under capitalism.
Capitalism
is an economic system geared to the accumulation of profits as more
capital invested in production for profit. It is not a system geared
to improving the life of the majority.
New
wealth, when it is produced, is initially divided into wages, which
essentially cover what workers need to consume to recreate their
ability to work, and profits. Profits are the part that in theory
could be used to improve living standards. Some is taxed by the
capitalist state to maintain itself, some is consumed by the
capitalist class to maintain and improve its standard of living, but
most is destined for re-investment in production, so expanding
productive capacity. This is what drives the capitalist economy.
Given
this, what Baron predicted was never going to happen. Profits were
never going to be diverted to provide workers with a standard of
living above what was necessary to maintain them as workers. Any
attempt to do this would have clogged up the capitalist economic
system by undermining its driving force.
Productivity
did increase but not by as much as implied, once again because of
capitalism where automation is only introduced if it is cheaper than
employing workers, not as soon as it reduces the total amount of work
involved. There was a redistribution of work from the manufacturing
to the service sector including the capitalist state.
Baron’s
figure of only about 20 percent doing ‘essential work’ —
producing useful things and services — could be accurate. However,
instead of this resulting in 80 percent being able to lead a life of
leisure, the number of jobs that don’t produce anything or anything
useful increased. These jobs, such as all those concerned with buying
and selling, paying money, and providing buildings and hardware for
this, are essential for capitalism to function, but not for society
to survive.
Khosla
will fare no better. AI will increase productivity but not by as much
as he says, and certainly not spectacularly. The fact that 64 percent
of jobs ‘would be capable of being done by AI does not mean that
they all will be. And, are the capitalists going to allow their
profits to be taxed to pay everybody a state income appreciably above
the poverty line? Will any government even try to do this in the
knowledge that it would undermine the driving force of capitalism?
Only
on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of
productive resources can production be geared to satisfying people’s
needs, all the easier given the disappearance of inessential
capitalist jobs, and automation and AI allow a reduction in work-time
all round.’
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2023/10/ai-in-perspective-2023.html
