Stephen
Kershnar
The Coming Revolution
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
December
23, 2018
When people in Europe enjoyed the end
of the Belle Époque, they had no idea of the massive change to people’s lives
that would accompany World War I and its aftermath. Similarly, in the next two
decades, the degree of change and the speed with which it will occur will usher
in radical change.
There are two changes that will rock
our world. First, improving machinery (including artificial intelligence) will vastly
reduce the number of workers needed and the amount of work required of each
worker. Second, genetic engineering will make human beings smarter, faster, and
better in ways previously unimagined.
In 2013, Oxford University
professors Carl Frey and Michael Osborne estimated that nearly half of U.S.
jobs could be replaced with automated machines in the next two decades. This is
a mind-boggling 80 million unemployed people. The jobs most at risk of automation
are those that are routine, that is, performed according to explicit rules.
This includes manual jobs (for example, truck driver) and cognitive jobs (for
example, cashier). Harvard economist Lawrence Katz estimates that in
transportation alone, five million people (3% of the work force) could be
unemployed as the result of driverless vehicles. Consider, for example, delivery
vehicles, long-haul trucks, and taxis.
California
Polytechnic State University philosopher Ryan Jenkins points out that even jobs
requiring strategy, cunning, and context-sensitivity not only will be replaced,
but already are being displaced. Consider that many stock trades are already
handled by machines.
Jenkins
points out that massive technological unemployment will have large effects.
First, he predicts it will lead to extended unemployment. Tens of millions of
people unemployed in a short period of time will likely cause many to suffer
the social ills that plague the long-term unemployed underclass. Consider, for
example, alcoholism, depression, opioid abuse, out-of-wedlock births, suicide,
and violence. Second, he argues, because many people find life meaningful in
part based on the work they do, there will be a dizzying change in values as tens
of millions of people no longer contribute to society through their work. They
will have to decide how to occupy their days. Third, he notes, with so many
people unable to contribute in the marketplace, fellow taxpayers will have to
expand the amount of welfare in terms of cash, food, housing, medical care, etc.
for those whose jobs have been automated away.
Second,
and perhaps later than the automation of jobs, genetic engineering will make
people far better in a few generations. Drew University philosopher Thomas
Magnell argues that genetic engineering will make people smarter, faster,
stronger, and morally better. He further argues that the rate of improvement
will accelerate. This is part because machines will improve people through
selection of better gametes, gene repair and replacement, better mate
selection, and so on. This is also in part because people will improve machines
as each generation of smarter people will build better machines. Large numbers
of brilliant people working with ever more powerful computers will discover and
design dazzling things. Nor is this Jules Verne speculation. As it is (at least
in part due to changes in nutrition), people’s IQs are increasing and genetic
counselors are increasingly able to warn people of maladies some are likely to
face.
By
analogy, 19th Century intellectuals, let alone most people, could
only foresee the changes in chemistry, philosophy, and physics in crude and
imprecise terms. They likely didn’t foresee the computer revolution at all.
There is a good chance that the changes coming our way will be just as radical
as those experienced by someone living from 1865 to 1965.
A
world with vast unemployment, levels of economic efficiency and luxury barely
imaginable, and new and improved people will change the world in the same way
that other revolutions did so. Consider, for example, the agricultural,
industrial, and computer revolutions and changes that accompanied the Civil War
and World War I.
An
interesting question is whether our current values should continue to guide us.
Most people find value and meaning in their families, jobs, community, and
religion. Leaving aside people’s commitment to families, it is unclear which of
the other things will continue to provide value and meaning. As many people
become unproductive because they cannot efficiency produce things, work will cease
to be so important to people’s lives. Many people will be increasingly be like
Florida retirees only with an earlier start.
Religion
is already declining in importance in Europe and the U.S. As the metaphysical
claims on which religion rests (consider, for example, free will, God, and
souls) and the specific content of particular religions (consider, for example,
atonement, chosen people, and Muhammad and Joseph Smith as prophets) become
increasingly less plausible, today’s religions will likely fade in a way similar
how the Greek and Roman religions faded away.
The
effect on community is harder to predict. Contrary to what many intellectuals
predicted, societies continue to emphasize tribalism. This can be seen in wars
and increasing balkanization of countries. This can also be seen in the
international revulsion at the U.S. and European elites’ attempt to flood their
countries with poor-and-uneducated third world immigrants, many of whom have
different values and loyalties. See, for example, Brexit, Donald Trump, and the
rise of nationalist European parties. It is unclear if the accelerating change
will strengthen or weaken tribalism.
Nor
will people be able to hold off these changes. Societies that attempt to adopt
Luddite-like rules to hold off such changes will become increasingly worse off
relative to their competitors. Market-like pressures and the desire of people
to see their children flourish will limit communities’ abilities to hold off
these revolutions. Similar to the Amish or Hasidim, contemporary Luddites will
likely exist but mainly on the fringe.
It
is both exciting and disturbing to sit on the edge of a revolution. Exciting
because we’re about to see a new world. Disturbing because what we want and
value will likely change.Aut
