The next Penny U will discuss
the impact of technology on work. The conversation is scheduled for 5 p.m.,
Wednesday, November 5 in Town Hall’s downstairs cafe.
Background on the topic
* Technology will require
us to redefine our notions of work and employment.
PewResearch
Many experts believe that
because of technology “the entire concept of ‘work’ will undergo a significant
shift,” requiring us to redefine our notions of work and employment. This is
one of many findings in a study by the PewResearch Internet Project published
in August this year. (See reference below.)
The Internet Project
canvassed experts and interested public and received 1,900 responses to an
open-ended question on the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on
the future of jobs. While the expectation that the nature of work will change
was one shared by many, significant disagreements were also found. Responses,
for instance, were split almost equally between people who believe that
technology will “displace significant numbers of both blue and white collar
workers resulting in breakdowns in the social order by 2025,” and those who
don’t expect technology to displace more jobs than it creates and who “have
faith that human ingenuity will create new jobs, industries, and ways to make a
living” as it has since the Industrial Revolution.
The impact of technology
on work has been on the minds of recent Town Hall speakers as well.
* Offloading a task to a
machine changes the work and the worker. – Nicholas Carr
Nicholas Carr – “Human Consequences of Technology,” October 6 – said, “offloading
a task to a machine doesn’t simply offload that task, it changes the work and
the worker.” Some of the unintended consequences Carr mentioned include:
trusting computers (the dangers of trusting auto-correct are well known) while
ignoring our own knowledge; relying more on “cut-and-paste” than thinking
clearly about each action; or finding that doctors supported by electronic
files tend to order more tests. It can turn us, Carr said, from “actors” to
“observers.” The advantage we have as humans, he added, is that we understand
the world in ways that computers cannot. We can use technology to close us off
from our own understanding of the world, or we can use it as a base to move out
into the world and make it a richer place.
* We are making average
people redundant. – The Baffler
The Baffler – “We are making average people redundant,” claimed
key voices from The Baffler magazine
on their visit to Town Hall this October. In his story of the “innovation
economy” in Cambridge, Massachusetts, John Summers, Baffler’s editor-in-chief and author of No Future for You, reported that despite the broad economic promise
of the innovation economy, “significant gains in jobs outside commercial
science and tech have simply not materialized. The jobless rate among people
without college credentials is double that of degree holders.”
* The emerging Internet of
Things could provide a ubiquitous platform for the evolution of an alternative
system: a “collaborative commons.” – Jeremy Rifkin
Jeremy Rifkin (Town Hall, April 2014) predicted that we’re in a technology
revolution so extreme in its productivity that the cost of producing goods and
services will decline precipitously, leaving little room for profit and
squeezing existing jobs even farther. “The triumph of Adam Smith’s ‘invisible
hand’,” he said, “will lead to its demise and to the need for a new system.” He
also believes that the emerging Internet of Things, a vast neural network of
sensors connecting internet addresses, could provide a ubiquitous platform for
the growth of an alternative. Most economists believe, Rifkin said, that there
are only two ways to organize an economy – government and private enterprise.
But the “social commons” is even older than either and is already used around
the world. Extensive research by Nobel Prize-wining economist Elinor Ostrom
shows that through much of history, people have come together to create commons,
that is, they have established democratic protocols for the self-management of
common resources. Rifkin acknowledges that to get there, we’d have to navigate
many challenges – income for jobs, threats of monopolization, climate change –
and we have to move quickly.
Questions for Penny U on November 5
• How is
technology changing your work?
• Could
you be replaced by a machine? How, or
why not?
• What can
you do that couldn’t be replaced by technology?
• Thinking of the impact of tech on work, where are you on a continuum between imagining a future of lost jobs and social breakdown on one end and the creation of new jobs and ways to make a living on the other ?
References
• PewResearch study
<http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/06/future-of-jobs>
• Nicholas Carr, <http://www.townhallseattle.org/nicholas-carr-human-consequences-of-technology/>
• Salvos from The Baffler <http://www.townhallseattle.org/thomas-frank-rick-perlstein-and-john-summers-salvos-from-the-baffler-magazine/>
• Jeremy Rifkin <http://www.townhallseattle.org/jeremy-rifkinwhy-capitalism-is-dwindling/>
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