When No One Works

The rise of automation has given cause for everyone to be concerned about their place in the work force, “what happens when the machines take our jobs?”, “what happens when no one works?” We’re seeing more and more automation taking over more and more jobs and this is a trend that will continue as our machines become more capable. So where does that leave us? how will we make ends meet if we can’t make a salary? Some countries are discussing the idea of a universal basic income, a standard salary all citizens would get to facilitate the acceptable standard of living. However this is nothing more than a stopgap solution even if it does work, such a policy would be unfeasible when no one has a job and no one is paying taxes.

I’ve pondered this question and the only true answer is also a very controversial one. Abolish currency all together.

Now before you freak out lets walk through what the future will look like with the way things are going. To highlight the issue of our redundancy you can watch CGP Grey’s fantastic video on how automation will leave us jobless.

With everyone losing their jobs there’ll be no one to buy the very things that those jobs were helping to make, which does leave a bleak impression. If no one is working then no one is buying. So where then do we turn for our food, clothing and shelter?

But fear not for not all is lost, as the saying goes “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade”, and so lemonade we shall make. The very technology taking jobs will be also be what helps us.

In the age of software came software piracy, copies of digital media downloaded for free, without obtaining the rights from the owner. Now in the age of the 3D Printer comes hardware piracy, sending a blueprint of a device to a printer allows it to create that object. With printers becoming more and more advanced every year — in a short time we’ve been able to move from basic plastics to metals, glass, wood, steel, chocolate and even stem cells — it won’t be long before anything is printable. Thus the machine that took our manufacturing jobs becomes the enabler for our own manufacturing.

But piracy is piracy and it’s still not legal or right to do it, no one is advocating for piracy here, however hardware piracy, like software piracy, is inevitable, in fact it’s already happening and if we’ve learnt from our mistakes from dealing with software piracy then we should be able to get out ahead of it. Piracy is a force of the market, it happens when businesses fail to keep up with the needs of the market and if businesses don’t adapt to the new financial situations of their customers they’ll only have themselves to blame.

Piracy isn’t the only way in which free content is provided. The world of open source software allows access to tons of software at no cost, free alternatives of popular high end programs like Photoshop, Microsoft Word and others are all available. This will also follow on to the hardware side once 3D printing becomes prevalent, companies will provide blueprints for everything from clothing to electronics to cars, freely accessible to anyone, in fact companies like Shapeways already have stores for people to buy and sell their 3D blueprints.

The above video shows the Liberator, a 3D printed gun created by Defense Distributed, founded by Cody Wilson. What many people took away about the Liberator was its intent as a weapon, but rather it was an example, that now we could simply download objects and print them at home and there’s really no way to stop it.

You’re probably thinking, historically every time a job has been automated we’ve always been able to create new jobs for ourselves, new ventures gave rise to more positions and over time advancements in technology allowed for brand new fields of work to arise, however history never had to deal with Artificial Intelligence. Capable of the same cognitive tasks as any human, and more, AI will be qualified for any work any human could ever do, and even work we can’t. AI will outpace our ability to re-skill ourselves for a changing job market, why train a human to do a job when a machine can learn it in a day and then share that knowledge with all other connected machines. This is a good thing.

As Samual Arbesman points out in his essay Is Technology Making the World Indecipherable our networks and systems are already becoming too complicated for humans, even experts, to understand. It is only with an advanced intelligence like AI that we’ll be able to keep advancing without becoming lost in a labyrinth of our own creation.

As with 3D printing, so too will AI become open source and available to the masses, allowing the free access to all the things it creates. AI gives access to incredibly intellectual capabilities, with it the low quality expectations of cheap or free products vanishes, AI will replace a high skilled work force and produce the same or better quality work, making the difference between premium and open source indistinguishable. This is not even speaking for the technological advancements which may be brought forward by AI.

Companies still operating under a capitalist system will have to compete with these open source alternatives and with customers having no jobs these companies are not going to see the same financial rewards they once did, if any at all.

This trend will follow in every industry as they all become automated and produce abundance. To achieve this however many industries will have to change quite significantly. An abundance of energy, an abundance of content, an abundance of food, etc. Offering more freedom to people to use their time as they wish and enjoy living, exploring and absorbing information.

Of course this will not prevent those who wish to work from working, some people love what they do and will continue to do it even if they’re not being paid so long as all their needs are being met. We’ll all create the lives we wish to live in a truly fair society. There will be many changes in the way things work between now and then but drastic change always comes as the convergence of many different, smaller changes across different industries.