Jobs for the Robots and Money for Everybody

The robots are coming! They're going to take all of our jobs!

This is a perspective that is starkly absent from the debate over the unemployment of coal miners, trade wars with China, and immigration crack-downs that have come into the spotlight of American politics over the last few years. As alarmist as the rhetoric on these topics can be, somehow the idea of jobs being automated is perceived as even moreso. But the real difference is that the latter is likely to be (and has already proven to be) true.

It may be helpful to understand who the real culprit is. Every article on artificial intelligence seems to feature the skinless Terminator with glowing red eyes. This implies that a humanoid robot will be literally sitting at your desk while you sullenly put your favorite coffee mug and pictures of your kids in a cardboard box and board the elevator. It works as a metaphor, but it really won't happen that way. I say this realizing fully well that I have done exactly this in my goofy cartoon (The Space Invaders robot killing people of the beach, however, is a chilling prophecy, as Space Invaders get faster and more dangerous with Moore's Law.)

Imagine having a white-collar job as an accountant before computers became commonplace. Much of your workday would be spent using an adding machine and comparing "Column A" to "Column B", checking to see that totals add up correctly. How would you feel when your office gets a computer, and you start doing this in MS Excel? There would be a learning curve for the new tool, no doubt. But comparing the columns would in a relatively short amount of time become significantly easier. You wouldn't curse the machine that just stole your job. Instead you would enjoy your new-found productivity and efficiency, and would now have time to do analysis and other activities that add real value.

As each version of Excel gets more sophisticated, so does your ability to do analysis. If you can keep up, this is a good thing. And if your workplace is equitable, you should expect to get paid more. And if it's not, then you've got skills to take to the job market and find one that is. A parallel exist with bank tellers and ATM's - tellers could do higher-level tasks now that they were freed from constantly counting out cash for people.

But if you can't keep up, then maybe you've got a problem. An office of an accountant with three supporting bookkeepers would have been in a position to save money by cutting one or more of those three jobs when a computer could take care of all of the tedious "Column A-to-Column B" work that there was to do, in less time. Same goes for bank tellers, and also for the displacement of NASA's "computers" (actually used to be a job title) by actual "computers" (modern definition), unless they were able to learn FORTRAN and turn their would-be usurpors into tools, as in the story of Dorothy Vaughan, featured in Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures (portrayed by Octavia Spencer in the 2016 film adaptation.)

During each upheaval by automation, from Ned Lud's weaving looms to Detroit's auto industry to clerical jobs in the early 21st century, the future remains ambiguous and unpredictable, and no one can foresee the new opportunities that will follow. Factory workers from a century or two ago could never conceive of jobs such as Social Media Consultant, Investigative Blogger, YouTube Host, HR Technologies Project Leader, and Twitter Shark Tagger (this is actually a thing, from Tom Friedman's Thank You for Being Late.) But somehow, when it seems that there will be no work left to be done, the human race finds more ways to occupy time, create new demands, and fill those demands. The disruption becomes a long-term good thing, often even for the people originally displaced from monotonous, unpleasant and/or dangerous jobs.

While this positive trend can be seen in action over the long term, it is small consolation to people who are suddenly thrown out of work and deprived of the means to support themselves and their families. This can be seen in action as well, even when unemployment numbers look relatively good. There is a portion of the U.S. population who have stopped looking for work, and are therefore not counted in the total number of unemployed. The disruption caused by automation and new efficiencies has very real consequences, particularly for the poor.

Should we curse the "robots" for taking our jobs? Is it all the fault of Skynet and that creepy Terminator?

The problem of tech unemployment goes hand in hand with the rising gap between rich and poor globally. The bullish economy and recent gains in productivity mostly benefit the companies who adopt the new technologies and then cut unneeded headcount. This should come as a surprise to no one, as it's the basic formula of capitalism. And the reason why this issue is absent from political debate (at least in the US) is because to take on tech unemployment as a real issue would be to take on wealth inequality. And any politician on either side of the aisle who takes on wealth inequality (beyond election year lip-service) alienates campaign contributors.

In a capitalist economy, companies gain productivity and then save on labor, with no obligation to help the people displaced. So there are a few big winners and many big losers in the game. Federal assistance for the unemployed can provide some relief, but not if 47% of current jobs will be automated by 2034. (Yup, that's another robot doing somebody's desk job in the picture.)

So are we ready to scrap the entire capitalist system, and re-implement the failed experiment of the Communist states of the 20th century? I certainly hope not. Even setting aside the human rights atrocities that are inevitable with the top-down control of the distribution of resources under such a regime, there is the removal of market motivation and the stalling of innovation that has been the source of all of the new wealth in the first place. The solution is somewhere in the middle, as it always has been. Markets should be free to allow people to make money, but the money should never be "free". Those who benefit the most from a free market system should be expected to support the cost to keep it running, and wealth inequality on one end of the spectrum or stifling top-down government control on the other can both cause it to stall and/or stop.

The massive disruption of employment by automation in the next few decades can lead to two possible futures: one in which we all benefit from the economic gains (to varying degrees), and one in which we do not. There's a lot to consider when navigating toward a world where workers are employable again and prepared for future jobs that have not even been created yet. They need to be trained, healthy, and productive. These are complex problems with complex solutions. Healthcare is complicated (he's not wrong on that statement, just should have known better), education is complicated (Here's a good article by @chekohler on this one), and the whole landscape in general is complicated. But in the short-term, wealth inequality has a simple solution: take some money from the top, and give it to the bottom.

The most equitable and responsible way to do this is with Universal Basic Income.

Andrew Yang is running for US President in 2020 on this platform; he was recently a guest on Sam Harris' Waking Up podcast to make his case for $1,000/month UBI for every US citizen age 18-64. This is not enough to completely replace anyone's lost income, so it keeps the incentive for workers to strive to find a job or look for a better one. But it's enough to make things easier for workers to escape the trap of chronic unemployment/underemployment. It's also a clear numerical amount, so if, after implementation of the program and collection of data show that it's too much or not enough, the number can be adjusted in a clear way. And as ambitious as it is as a budget item, it has the potential to stimulate the economy in a way that has a much better ROI than the 2008 bank bailout. I won't restate the whole argument; you can read more on his web site. (Note: I would like to be clear that I mention Andrew Yang because of my interest in his ideas; as of this writing I have no affiliation with his or any other political campaign.)

A successful implementation of UBI still has a few issues, however, that may need to be addressed:

The idea of a uniform amount for everybody is a blunt instrument, and not everybody's needs are the same. And the government is notoriously bad at assessing economic needs equitably. This can be solved, at least in part, by distributing in a way that leverages market forces, and is a strong use case for cryptocurrency. See this article by Scott Santens.

Another issue is that "Universal" has to be just that. It can be done effectively within the borders on one nation, or even within a smaller community. But if the problem of wealth inequality is global, then the remedy needs to have that same scope. One can imagine a developed nation promising $1,000/month to each of its citizens, and then an already severe immigration or refugee crisis becomes even worse as a result, particularly on the borders of that same developed nation where citizenship is coveted due to the program, even more that it may otherwise be. The people who need the assistance the most globally are the least able to get it, because if they are citizens of any nation at all, it is probably a poor nation without the means of implementing a UBI program. Another strong use case for cryptocurrency in the distribution of UBI. The idea of a global UBI would be difficult to implement as is; cryptocurrency could make that slightly easier, although still complex.

Ideologically the recipients of UBI should have complete freedom to spend it as they need to. This puts the responsibility on the individual and allows markets to thrive naturally, and it's hard to argue with this as a goal. But there is a pragmatic side to the discussion that needs to be considered. If the idea of UBI were placed into the American political arena, it would immediately be painted as a "free handout." It pains me to say this, but it would need to be made more pallatable for an electorate that picked this guy.

Critics of current government assistance programs point to fraud, and also to a small (greatly exaggerated) minority who mismanage their own personal finances. Addictive behaviors, such as opioids, alcoholism and gambling, may need to be addressed with some controls over the benefit, as a no-strings-attached cash payment could enable these addictions. If the distribution of UBI were done using cryptocurrency with smart contracts, then at least some portion of it could be governed, or, if that's problematic for the decentralized spirit of the technology, incentivized. This could be done in a common sense way, by allowing for the payments to be slightly more if spent a certain way, such as on preventative healthcare, nutrition, education, and other categories that can help the individual to be more productive in the long-term. This could also help some out of cycles of addiction and other bad habits, which might be hard to break if simply given as cash payments to be spent without discretion.

This also open the door to another use case for cryptocurrency and smart contracts: if the government can set rules on payments to citizens, then it stands to reason that the citizens should be able to set rules on payments to the government. If taxes were paid in this manner, there could be some portion of an individual's income tax liability that could go only toward funding programs of which the individual approves. If implemented in the right way (i.e., NOT as more money = more influence), this could engage citizens in the collective decision-making of their government outside of Election Day.

Undoubtedly these are not all good ideas. It's easy to see how any one of them could go awry, given the history of how governments handle such things. But with the technology in place to make payments securely and to collect valid data on the progress of any program, we have the opportunity to run some truly useful experiments. That will allow us to see what works and to support it, or to see what doesn't work and to kill it before it drags on for decades like government programs tend to. Our elected officials will need to be on board, as will the business world. And this may require a cultural shift that feels like a far-off dream right now. But when a good idea is put into practice and people see that it actually works, the proof can be hard to deny even in this day and age. And it helps when the idea is money for everybody.