There are two ways to think of this, one utopian, one dystopian. On the utopian side, the rhetoric is familiar. Having the "replicator," along with a panoply of devices that free us from routine tasks, will free us to become the human beings we are destined to become. We no longer need to scramble to "make a living," because everything we need and want is there, poof, for the asking, and so we are free to fulfill our destiny as individual human beings with unique and unlimited potential. On the utopian side, that destiny, of course, is always imagined in halcyon ways, but mostly centered on the "creative" potential of mankind. In some respects, this seems to be the future that Star Trek portrays. The crew of the Enterprise or the Voyager is enthusiastically in pursuit of "exploration." Of course, it being fiction and our fictions require conflict to drive their plots, the crew of the star ship does run into trouble along the way, but as their non-interference prime directive reminds us, they are not seeking new worlds to conquer, simply new worlds to know and understand, new worlds to explore. It is a world, it seems, where everyone is either an artist, an engineer, a scientist, or an explorer -- someone who freely contributes their bit to the gigabyte of human "creativity."
On the dystopian side, the rhetoric is equally familiar. One of the principle villains in the Star Trek series is the Borg. The Borg are the ultimate totalitarians, a species that assimilates everyone and everything into their "technology collective." Direction is important. For the crew of the Enterprise, humans have intentionality, but the technology remains "instrumental." It is distinct from and used by human beings to achieve their ends. The technology that achieves "sentience" (Data on the Enterprise series, the Doctor on the Voyager series) want, like Pinocchio, to become more, not less like individual human beings with intentionality. The crew of the Borg "cubes," however, are "drones." Everything, including the bodies of those they assimilate, are enhanced with an infused technology and become part of the technology collective. The Borg, in other words, free us from our individual humanity to become what we are destined to become, adjuncts to the technology collective. The Borg, in other words, have freed technology to become all that it is destined to become. The technology collective has intentionality and the humans, as such, are assimilated to and used by the collective for its ends, which seem to be nothing more than the assimilation and use of additional beings.
We are, of course, somewhere between the crew of the Enterprise and the Borg. I want to suggest that the driver of our current economic malaise is technology driven. Before I can make that point, I need to to make an heretical statement, but I would ask that you bear with me. Both opportunity and potential are limited for the vast majority of human beings. Opportunity is necessary to the fulfillment of potential, but not sufficient. Put another way, one will never become Michael Jordan or Steven Hawking if one is not afforded the opportunity to develop one's athletic or intellectual skills. To claim that one "makes one's own opportunities" is perhaps true, but only in a very, very limited sense. Some obstacles simply cannot be overcome. Assuming one is born with the genetic endowment that would allow one to become the next Michael Jordan or Steven Hawking, insufficient nutrition and education in the formative years trumps that endowment for good and forever. The potential is lost. Beyond that, assuming one is NOT born with the genetic endowment -- that one is an average, or even slightly below average human being -- no amount of "opportunity" will take one's jump shot or one's math skills to the level of a Michael Jordan or a Steven Hawking. The potential, both physical and intellectual, is limited from the outset.
We are accustomed to thinking of our physical potential as limited, but the heretical statement is, of course, that intellectual potential is limited from the outset. We accept physical limitations, but we want to believe, and go to great lengths to believe, that we are all somehow equally endowed intellectually. My wife, the other day, reminded me, for example, that I have a lot of "book smarts," but that she has "street smarts" and/or "common sense." I would grant a couple of things. First, if empathy is a form of intelligence, then she has it in great abundance over me. This may mark me as a sociopath, but my "empathy," as such, is abstract. I understand how others might feel, and so I can behave more or less appropriately, but I don't ever "feel" another's pain. My wife clearly does "feel" their pain. From a moral perspective, that is a greater gift than my abstract and analytical intelligence, and may even make her more human, but no amount of tutoring, no amount of education will bring her math skills up to mine. Second, if we accept the compartmentalization of intelligence, (e.g. empathy vs analytic intelligence) then it might be possible to do some form of accounting where we all, in the end, are somehow equally endowed intellectually. Having said that, however, I have known people, too many people, who lack both empathy AND analytic skills. We would need to do some real digging to find the "intelligence" that would balance the books.
So, back to my point. Our current economic malaise is technology driven. Here's the axiomatic statement: "to the degree that our technology is 'instrumental,' to that same degree it displaces the need for human beings.' Consider, for example, a "simple" technology, Archimedes lever and the "wheel." Imagine a large stone block of the sort that goes into a Greek temple, about the size of a small car. How many men would it take to lift and carry that block? How many men would it take to lever it up onto a series of logs and push it across a distance? The answer is fewer. Consider, for example, a "complex" technology made possible by digital technologies. Imagine Amazon's warehouse with stacks upon stacks of goods waiting for distribution. How many people would it take to person that warehouse before the advent of digital and robotic technologies? How many people would it take to person that warehouse after the advent of digital and robotic technologies? The answer again is fewer. Think books. How many are engaged in the production land distribution of a book. If we imagine the supply train for a physical book, it involves not only the writer and publisher of that book, but also the printer, the suppliers to the printer, the driver who delivers it to the book store, the cashier in the book store, among others. Think ebook. How many people are engaged in the production and distribution of an ebook? The writer, the publisher, those who maintain the commercial delivery platform. The answer again is fewer, far fewer.
Don't misunderstand me. I personally have benefited enormously from the production and distribution of ebooks. Almost anything I want is immediately available to me, and books in the public domain are available pretty much free of charge. The technology has been enormously instrumental to me, but it has also displaced the need for human beings -- not the "writer" or the "technicians" who manage the delivery platform, but all those other people who performed tasks less demanding of "creative" or "analytical" skills -- the printers, drivers, and such. Insofar as Amazon is a relatively "new" enterprise, it might even be possible to think of those who maintain the commercial delivery platform as "new" jobs, but that too is both true and misleading. Those jobs are simply the assimilation of several physical jobs into a technology. Amazon is less Enterprise, more Borg. It has served me and many others through enhanced "opportunity" to access to explore the available intellectual inheritance. Whether by doing so it has allowed me personally to fulfill my "creative potential" is another matter. I doubt that ultimately it has made much of a difference. There is only so much life available for reading, and I am relatively selective. Its technology has, however, undeniably assimilated livelihoods, reduced the number and types of "jobs" available, and curtailed the overall opportunity for many to reach their economic potential.
I am not the first to say this. I will not be the last. I will, however, add a corollary to the axiom: "resistance is futile." Trekkies will recognize the phrase. Once one's livelihood has been assimilated by the technological Borg, there is no "un-assimilating" it. The prevailing winds of capitalism drive the enterprise, any enterprise, toward improved "profit." There might be several ways to think of "profit," but right now, within the existing economic system, it means an improved monetary return on capital. This can be accomplished in two ways, both of which are facilitated by technology.
First, improvements in efficiency or productivity. If a task can be automated, it can be performed with greater speed and reliability than humans. The machines don't get bored, don't check out the ass of the worker next to them, don't worry that their kids might be experimenting with drugs, don't fantasize about the new "camper," don't ... the list of distractions is nearly infinite. They do, however, attend to their task with relentless mindlessness. Consequently, if a task can be automated, it will be automated. Those charged with improvements to the profit margins of any large corporation today will automate whatever can be automated. Failure to do so will mean the loss of competitive edge and profit.
A side note: this includes tasks that until very, very recently required "human" intelligence. Think surgery. It wasn't that long ago that surgeons were elevated to the status of demigods, and the accumulated "wealth" of a Ben Carson stands as a testament to the value our social systems placed on surgical skill. Having said that, however, surgery is now being displaced with technology, or to use the definition of the Mayo Clinic, "robotic surgery, or robot-assisted surgery, allows doctors to perform many types of complex procedures with more precision, flexibility, and control than is possible with conventional techniques." The technology will only improve, and a future without a broad cadre of surgeons is more than conceivable, it inevitable. Insofar as the technology is proprietary, it is unlikely to decrease the cost of surgery by much, any more than the advent of the ebook decreased the cost of new books, but it will eliminate the need for very expensive surgeons and improve the profit margin of our increasingly corporate health care systems.
Second, economies of scale. Think ebooks as described above, or better think "education." At the present, education is still a relatively "labor intensive" occupation. I won't touch primary and secondary education, but consider "higher education" for the moment. Nation wide, state legislators have cut back on their support to higher education, and in consequence there have been compensatory increases in tuition. I say "compensatory" because those same state legislators often have veto power over any tuition increases, and often the tuition increases are not sufficient to cover the loss of state tax support. The result has been an increasingly "privatized" higher education system subject to all the pressures of "private" business, particularly improvements in "efficiency" -- more "units of production" (i.e. "graduates") per dollar spent.
The first level of efficiency was achieved through "local outsourcing" and the hiring of "adjunct" instructors. Adjuncts are poorly paid period (about $15 per hour), but especially given their level of educational attainment (Masters+). They are part time, without benefits, and strictly limited in the amount of work they can undertake at any particular school, so many travel between schools piecing together work -- hence the description "road warriors." That so many are so willing to take on this work probably speaks to the over-production of advanced degrees in many fields, but that is a topic for another post.
The second level of efficiency is being achieved through "on-line" education. Higher education hasn't quite arrived at this level of efficiency, in part because initial forays into "on-line" education attempted to replicate the old industrial model of the "classroom experience" with an on-line instructor with a "virtual" classroom of 30 or so students. It has achieved, however, one level of efficiency. It displaced "bricks and mortar." Think of it this way. For 1,000 students, it takes about 35 classrooms to house them in traditional face-to-face instruction. To have 35 classrooms, one must have a relatively large building, with all the janitorial and other supports that a building requires. At my last institution, we "educated" approximately 7,000 on-line students, or the equivalent of 7 relatively large buildings of 35 classrooms. For our on-line classes, most of which were taught by adjuncts, we required a relatively large room in a small building for the servers and a row of administrative offices.
The "real" efficiencies in "on-line" education, however, will come with the automation of faculty roles. We are seeing this already with the advent of things like the Kahn Academy, where a YouTube clip viewable by millions has replaced the "lecture" viewable by 30 in a classroom. If one thinks of education as the dissemination of relevant information, you are looking at the demise of faculty, particularly when one "expert" instructor out of Harvard or Stanford can reach hundred of thousands through a well produced, well supported "instructional experience." Such is the MOOC, or the Massive Open On-line Course, the "open" indicating that one need not be "admitted" either to the institution or the course to participate superficially as a matter of intellectual curiosity. Those wishing "credit" toward a "degree" from a MOOC, however, will "pay for" admission as well as tutorial and testing "services," almost all of which can also be automated. If the MOOC model of education becomes real, not only will faculty everywhere simply fade away, so too will the institutions that support them. Our state universities can become what they want to become, subsidized research facilities and/or minor league sports franchises for the NFL and the NBA. Already well subsidized research facilities, our "elite" universities can also go on providing an interpersonal "elite" education to the sons and daughters of the "elite" -- that is to say, for those that can afford it - generationally replicating and reinforcing the emerging class structures.
I am, of course, just brushing lightly over the surface. Most of the standard remedies won't work to improve the lot of Americans. Although MOOCs might extend opportunities for a version of a Harvard or Stanford eduction to thousands, just extending educational opportunity won't work. Only a limited number of people have, I suspect, the innate capacity to achieve the sorts of education necessary. Even so, assuming that we haven't yet reached the "limit," that a greater number of people could achieve the sorts of education necessary if racial and cultural barriers to "educational attainment" were systemically removed, it still doesn't follow that "educational attainment" equates to "employment opportunity." There is an ever shrinking pool of jobs that require higher levels of "educational attainment." A degree remains necessary, but it is not sufficient. Investing in an education is like buying a lottery ticket with ever increasing odds against winning, particularly if there is no way of "guessing" up front whether the technological Borg will assimilate the livelihood. How many physics PhDs does it take to drive a taxi? None, if the Google "driverless" automobile comes fully into being.
Seven of Nine aside (again trekkies will recognize the reference) one cannot go back. Once one's livelihood is assimilated, it is always assimilated. There is a sort malthusian pessimism behind all this. We cannot continue down this path indefinitely. As more and more human jobs are assimilated to the technological Borg, as fewer and fewer people can "earn a living," there will be fewer and fewer people able to pay for the goods and services produced by the Borg, no matter how efficiently produced, no matter how well protected by the assimilative power of sheer size and "intellectual property rights." At some juncture, we will reach a point where there are too few people with a livelihood, with the ability to actually pay for something. Of course, Malthus didn't take into account "innovative agricultural technology" that allowed food production for the most part to keep up with population -- that is to say, an "agricultural technology" that allowed for the expansion of arable land and a simultaneous contraction of the numbers needed to cultivate it, freeing up the population for the rural exodus to the urban factories of the industrial revolution. Now that "innovative industrial technology" is allowing for a similar expansion of industry with a simultaneous contraction of the numbers needed to person it, where will the "excess population" go? If we are beyond the industrial age, and the so called information age has proved to be something of a bust (at least insofar in the gainful and meaningful employment of actual people) then what? If the "excess population" cannot move from the country to the city, then perhaps we need to reconsider the space-age? We could send them where no man (or woman) has gone before. We could begin our "colonization" of Mars and parts beyond. We have the technology, and the possibilities are even more limitless than western frontier of yore ...
The first level of efficiency was achieved through "local outsourcing" and the hiring of "adjunct" instructors. Adjuncts are poorly paid period (about $15 per hour), but especially given their level of educational attainment (Masters+). They are part time, without benefits, and strictly limited in the amount of work they can undertake at any particular school, so many travel between schools piecing together work -- hence the description "road warriors." That so many are so willing to take on this work probably speaks to the over-production of advanced degrees in many fields, but that is a topic for another post.
The second level of efficiency is being achieved through "on-line" education. Higher education hasn't quite arrived at this level of efficiency, in part because initial forays into "on-line" education attempted to replicate the old industrial model of the "classroom experience" with an on-line instructor with a "virtual" classroom of 30 or so students. It has achieved, however, one level of efficiency. It displaced "bricks and mortar." Think of it this way. For 1,000 students, it takes about 35 classrooms to house them in traditional face-to-face instruction. To have 35 classrooms, one must have a relatively large building, with all the janitorial and other supports that a building requires. At my last institution, we "educated" approximately 7,000 on-line students, or the equivalent of 7 relatively large buildings of 35 classrooms. For our on-line classes, most of which were taught by adjuncts, we required a relatively large room in a small building for the servers and a row of administrative offices.
The "real" efficiencies in "on-line" education, however, will come with the automation of faculty roles. We are seeing this already with the advent of things like the Kahn Academy, where a YouTube clip viewable by millions has replaced the "lecture" viewable by 30 in a classroom. If one thinks of education as the dissemination of relevant information, you are looking at the demise of faculty, particularly when one "expert" instructor out of Harvard or Stanford can reach hundred of thousands through a well produced, well supported "instructional experience." Such is the MOOC, or the Massive Open On-line Course, the "open" indicating that one need not be "admitted" either to the institution or the course to participate superficially as a matter of intellectual curiosity. Those wishing "credit" toward a "degree" from a MOOC, however, will "pay for" admission as well as tutorial and testing "services," almost all of which can also be automated. If the MOOC model of education becomes real, not only will faculty everywhere simply fade away, so too will the institutions that support them. Our state universities can become what they want to become, subsidized research facilities and/or minor league sports franchises for the NFL and the NBA. Already well subsidized research facilities, our "elite" universities can also go on providing an interpersonal "elite" education to the sons and daughters of the "elite" -- that is to say, for those that can afford it - generationally replicating and reinforcing the emerging class structures.
I am, of course, just brushing lightly over the surface. Most of the standard remedies won't work to improve the lot of Americans. Although MOOCs might extend opportunities for a version of a Harvard or Stanford eduction to thousands, just extending educational opportunity won't work. Only a limited number of people have, I suspect, the innate capacity to achieve the sorts of education necessary. Even so, assuming that we haven't yet reached the "limit," that a greater number of people could achieve the sorts of education necessary if racial and cultural barriers to "educational attainment" were systemically removed, it still doesn't follow that "educational attainment" equates to "employment opportunity." There is an ever shrinking pool of jobs that require higher levels of "educational attainment." A degree remains necessary, but it is not sufficient. Investing in an education is like buying a lottery ticket with ever increasing odds against winning, particularly if there is no way of "guessing" up front whether the technological Borg will assimilate the livelihood. How many physics PhDs does it take to drive a taxi? None, if the Google "driverless" automobile comes fully into being.
Seven of Nine aside (again trekkies will recognize the reference) one cannot go back. Once one's livelihood is assimilated, it is always assimilated. There is a sort malthusian pessimism behind all this. We cannot continue down this path indefinitely. As more and more human jobs are assimilated to the technological Borg, as fewer and fewer people can "earn a living," there will be fewer and fewer people able to pay for the goods and services produced by the Borg, no matter how efficiently produced, no matter how well protected by the assimilative power of sheer size and "intellectual property rights." At some juncture, we will reach a point where there are too few people with a livelihood, with the ability to actually pay for something. Of course, Malthus didn't take into account "innovative agricultural technology" that allowed food production for the most part to keep up with population -- that is to say, an "agricultural technology" that allowed for the expansion of arable land and a simultaneous contraction of the numbers needed to cultivate it, freeing up the population for the rural exodus to the urban factories of the industrial revolution. Now that "innovative industrial technology" is allowing for a similar expansion of industry with a simultaneous contraction of the numbers needed to person it, where will the "excess population" go? If we are beyond the industrial age, and the so called information age has proved to be something of a bust (at least insofar in the gainful and meaningful employment of actual people) then what? If the "excess population" cannot move from the country to the city, then perhaps we need to reconsider the space-age? We could send them where no man (or woman) has gone before. We could begin our "colonization" of Mars and parts beyond. We have the technology, and the possibilities are even more limitless than western frontier of yore ...
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