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(Paperback at Amazon.com)
Trade Paperback, 260 pages
Kindle Edition
PDF eBook
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About the
Author |
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Martin Ford is the founder of a Silicon
Valley-based software development firm. He has over 25 years
experience in the fields of computer design and software
development. He holds a computer engineering degree from the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a graduate business
degree from the University of California, Los
Angeles. |
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The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology
and the Economy of the Future
Excerpt:
Introduction
|
A Detailed Table of
Contents
is also available
Introduction
Like most people,
I have been giving a lot of thought to the economic situation as
the most serious crisis since the Great Depression has continued
to unfold. Since I develop software and run a high tech business,
I also spend a great deal of time thinking about computer
technology, and so I began to focus on how economics and technology
intertwine. The current crisis has been perceived as primarily financial
in origin, but is it possible that ever advancing technology is
an unseen force that has contributed significantly to the severity of
the downturn? More importantly, what economic impact will
technological acceleration have as we anticipate recovery from the
current crisis—and in the years and decades ahead? What will the
economy of the future look like?
Among people who
work in the field of computer technology, it is fairly routine to
speculate about the likelihood that computers will someday approach,
or possibly even exceed, human beings in general capability and
intelligence. Speaking at an industry conference in 2007, Google
co-founder Larry Page said, "We have some people at Google [who] are
really trying to build artificial intelligence and to do it on a
large scale. It's not as far off as people think." Ray
Kurzweil, a well-known inventor, author and futurist, states quite
categorically that he expects computers to become at least as
intelligent as humans by the year 2029. While other experts
are far more conservative about the prospect for machines that can
achieve genuine intelligence, there can be little doubt that
computers and robots are going to become dramatically more capable
and flexible in the coming years and decades.
What is the likely economic
impact of machines or computers that begin to catch up with—and
maybe even surpass—the average person's capability to do a
typical job? Clearly, the employment market would be one of the
first areas to feel that influence. Put yourself in the position of
a business owner and think of all the problems that are associated
with human employees: vacation, safety rules, sick time, payroll
taxes, poor performance…maternity leave. If an affordable machine
can do nearly any routine job as well as a human worker, then what
business manager in his or her right mind would hire a
worker?
Even if computers
never become truly intelligent, surely machines are likely to become
far more capable in terms of their ability to perform a relatively
narrow range of tasks. The reality is that a substantial fraction of
the routine, specialized jobs held by average people—including many
people with college degrees—simply do not really require the full
intellectual breadth of a human being. This is the reason that a lot
of jobs are boring. If computers can already beat the best chess
players in the world, isn't it likely that they will also soon be
able to perform many routine jobs? In fact, I think there are good
reasons to expect that machines may begin to approach this more
specialized level of "intelligence" within a decade or
two.
Since many of the
people who work in fields like artificial intelligence and robotics
are talking about the future prospects for these technologies on a
fairly regular basis, I assumed that a similar discussion must be
going on among economists. Surely, the economists are thinking
ahead. If machines suddenly get smarter and start doing many of our
jobs, then the economists will have a plan in place. At least they
will have thought about it; they'll have some good suggestions.
Right?
Well, no. It turns out that while technologists
are actively thinking about, and writing books about,
intelligent machines, the idea that technology will ever truly
replace a large fraction of the human workforce and lead to
permanent, structural unemployment is, for the majority of
economists, almost unthinkable. For mainstream economists,
at least in the long run, technological advancement always leads to
more prosperity and more jobs. This is seen almost as an economic
law. Anyone
who challenges this "law of economics" is called a "neo-Luddite."
This is not a compliment. (We'll talk about Luddites and the
associated "Luddite fallacy" in some detail in Chapter 2 of this
book.)
While most
economists dismiss the question completely, the technical people
seem to be entirely caught up in the excitement of the technology
itself and what it might potentially promise. There is some
discussion of the fact that artificial intelligence might have
serious impacts on society, but much of this is focused on the
threat of truly advanced or even sentient machines in some way
"taking over." There is little attention given to the more mundane
and immediate threats to the job market and the overall economy.
Perhaps the technologists just assume that once the technology comes
along, the economic issues will somehow work themselves
out.
Now that is an
unsupportable assumption. It would probably be reasonable to assume
that technical problems will sort themselves out. Technology usually
seems to find a way. But economic policy and political issues? Think
back to 1993. Bill Clinton had just been elected and had promised to
reform the health care system. As we all know, that effort failed.
The major issues back in 1993 were very similar to what we continue
to face in 2009. As this is being written, Congress is once again
taking up the issue of comprehensive health care reform. It has
taken a full 16 years to get to this point, and still the outcome is
by no means certain.
But what
happened with technology? In 1993, hardly anyone had heard of the
Internet: it was something that people in government and at universities
used primarily for work-related email. Some people had primitive
cell phones. Microsoft had just introduced Windows 3.1, which for
the first time brought a usable graphical interface to IBM
PC-compatible computers. The evidence is pretty clear: a race
between technology and our ability to reform our political and
economic systems is really no race at all. So if we can foresee that
technology is likely to have a highly disruptive impact on our
economy in the coming years and decades, then we really need to
start thinking about that well in advance.
The disintegration
of the Soviet Union in 1991 demonstrated quite conclusively that
there is no good alternative to the free market system. Other
economic systems simply cannot compete. In fact, it's probably
reasonable to say that the free market economy is one of mankind's
greatest inventions—ranking right up there with the wheel. The
wealth and progress that we enjoy in the industrialized world would
not have come into being without the underlying logic of capitalism.
Historically, technology and the market economy have worked together
to make us all more wealthy. Will this always be true? Is it simply
a matter of leaving the system we have in place?
The reality is that
the free market economy, as we understand it today, simply cannot
work without a viable labor market. Jobs are the primary mechanism
through which income—and, therefore, purchasing power—is distributed
to the people who consume everything the economy produces. If at
some point, machines are likely to permanently take over a great
deal of the work now performed by human beings, then that will be a
threat to the very foundation of our economic system. This is not
something that will just work itself out. This is something that we
need to begin thinking about—and that is the primary subject of
this book.
Once you identify and begin to think about the
economic ramifications of advancing technology, it becomes clear
that these trends are already well established and may even underlie
the current crisis to a significant extent. If you make some very
logical, and even conservative, assumptions about where technology
is likely to lead in the coming years, much of the conventional
wisdom about what the future will look like becomes unsupportable.
In particular, important trends such as globalization simply may not
play out in the way we have been led to expect. If we do not
recognize these issues and adapt to the changes they imply, it will
be very
difficult—perhaps impossible—to achieve a sustainable recovery
that will lead to long term prosperity in the years and decades to
come.
As we will see, technology is not just
advancing gradually: it is accelerating. As a result, the impact may
come long before we expect it—and long before we are ready. And
yet, this issue is simply not on the radar. If after reading this
book, you are concerned about the issues raised here, then I hope
you will consider speaking out. Perhaps if enough people start to
discuss these issues, even the economists will take notice.
A Detailed
Table of
Contents
is also available |
