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Automation, AI and jobs
Artificial intelligence and automation will bring significant changes to every aspect of society and type of work. The promises are that this revolution will have only positive outcomes, but the very early effects are not encouraging.
Automation has made it possible to replace many dangerous and burdensome tasks. But workers' conditions have not necessarily improved.
Automation has accelerated work by forcing people to keep up with machines. This is certainly the case at Amazon, whose highly automated warehouses force workers under constant pressure.
Valter De Cillis worked as a courier for a logistics company working on behalf of Amazon in Pisa, Italy. His employer fired him, saying he was not meeting the predetermined daily delivery target. As a USB unionist, Valter was fighting for better safety conditions at work, starting a campaign called “I stand with Valter” (see video by Arte).
How many jobs will be lost as a result of this technological revolution?
According to some, an astronomical amount; according to others, for every job that will be automated, another job will be replaced, offsetting the effect.
Kiran Garimella, author of “AI + Blockchain”, when questioned about the latter possibility, replies:
.. [offsetting there will be] only to a limited extent, there will be a net loss of jobs. When, due to mechanization, many jobs were lost, others were created at a higher level, typically intellectual activities. But what will happen when the very intellectual jobs become redundant or too expensive?
On the other hand, in a recent study by the International Monetary Fund, an estimated 40 percent of jobs globally will be influenced by automation and AI. But such influence will vary between advanced and low-income countries.
In advanced economies, about 60 percent of jobs will be influenced by AI. Of these, about half will benefit from integration with AI technologies, gaining productivity. For the other half, AI applications will go on to perform key tasks currently done by humans, which will lead to lower demand for workers, which in turn will mean lower wages and declining hiring. In the most extreme cases, some of these jobs will disappear altogether.
In emerging and low-income markets, however, the influence of AI will be less disruptive at first. Moreover, because these countries lack the infrastructure and skills to harness the benefits of AI, the risk that the technology will, over time, increase inequality between countries will increase.
Widespread opinion is that it will be up to policy and institutions to contain the damage of the AI revolution and protect the welfare of workers.
As was said back in 2016 in the Obama administration's “Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy” report:
..whether AI will lead in the long run to unemployment and rising inequality will depend not only on the technologies but also on the institutions and policies put in place.
What could be the solution to prevent massive job losses?
The tool being discussed (beyond the debated Robot Tax) is the Universal Basic Income (UBI). This is a monetary transfer that should be given to every citizen of a given state.
Christina Dimitropoulou “Robot Taxation: A Normative Tax Policy Analysis – Domestic and International Tax Considerations” (book)
The basic idea is that the state should provide a survival income to people, for the same reason that it provides education and health services.
See also “Exploring Universal Basic Income” (World Bank Group).
An interesting perspective is also set forth in the book “Inventing the Future” by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams.
Neoliberalism has failed, robots are stealing our jobs, and the world has become increasingly complex and abstract.
Yet, for all the glossy sheen of our technological era, we remain bound by an old and obsolete set of social relations. We continue to work long hours, commuting further, to perform tasks that feel increasingly meaningless. Our jobs have become more insecure, our pay has stagnated, and our debt has become overwhelming. We struggle to make ends meet, to put food on the table, to pay the rent or mortgage, and as we shuffle from job to job, we reminisce about pensions and struggle to find affordable childcare. Automation renders us unemployed and stagnant wages devastate the middle class, while corporate profits surge to new heights. The glimmers of a better future are trampled and forgotten under the pressures of an increasingly precarious and demanding world. And each day, we return to work as normal: exhausted, anxious, stressed and frustrated.
According to the authors, it is necessary to automate as much as possible, ensuring a basic income for all those jobs that will cease to exist as a result of technology.
Marginalized workers in the service of AI
Many of the advances in AI and machine learning are also due to the possibility of having available and low-cost human resources to put at the disposal of machines. These are the clickworkers.
The phenomenon of so-called ghost working, digital workers who work without a contract, lonely, without social security, paid pennies per minute, is expanding and generally unknown to most. They are the outcasts of the gig economy.
ClickWorker company's teaser is enlightening:
Best Input for your AI System
We use the power of our global crowd of Clickworkers to generate, validate and label data.
The versatility of our team of qualified Clickworkers ensures you receive high quality, reliable AI training data that represents the kind of diversity that makes your AI model powerful and train your AI system to perfection.
Order AI training data that is specifically tailored to the requirements and goals of your AI system.
And the battle has already begun
Last October, thousands of longshoremen and port workers along the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast walked off the job after the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) failed to reach a contractual agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance, which represents the ports.
The ILA's initial proposal included a 77 percent wage increase for the six-year term of the contract with the USMX, as well as an outright ban on automating gates, cranes and container handling trucks at the ports.
The ILA is firmly opposed to any form of automation, total or partial, that replaces jobs or historical job functions, the largest union of maritime workers in North America said in a statement. We will not accept the loss of jobs and livelihoods for our members due to automation. Our position is clear: the preservation of jobs and historic job functions is non-negotiable.
A few days ago port workers on the East and Gulf Coasts reached an agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance, averting another strike before the Jan. 15 deadline. The new contract focuses largely on automation, just months after a three-day strike by dockworkers halted shipments at more than a dozen ports.
Dennis Daggett, executive vice president of the ILA, said in a Dec. 2, 2024, communication that the union is “not opposed to progress, innovation, or modernization, but we cannot support technology that jeopardizes jobs, threatens national security, and jeopardizes the future of the workforce.”
The big labor fight over automation is here.
Something I read
📗A book about tennis written by a (little-known) former tennis player: “The Racket, on tour with tennis's golden Generation - and the other 99%” by Conor Niland.
📗A book about the war for information, privacy secrets and espionage: “Reality, the Deep State and the War for Information” by Kerry Howley.
📈 The earnings of the S&P 500 Index in 2024 are due, 64%, to only 10 companies. And 55 percent to just 7 companies.
“Big Tech stocks have fueled most of the S&P 500's gains over the past several years”.