The Lights in the Tunnel Automation Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future_1 potx

Copyrighted Material – Paperback/Kindle available @ AmazonIntroduction 1 Chapter 1: The Tunnel 7 Chapter 2: Acceleration 27 Offshoring and Drive-Through Banking 54 Traditional Jobs:

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T HE L IGHTS IN

AUTOMATION, ACCE LE RATING

Martin Ford

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Introduction 1

Chapter 1: The Tunnel 7

Chapter 2: Acceleration 27

Offshoring and Drive-Through Banking 54

Traditional Jobs: The “Average” Lights in the Tunnel 58

“Software” Jobs and Artificial Intelligence 67 Automation, Offshoring and Small Business 74

Nanotechnology and its Impact on Employment 87

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Contents / vii

A More Ambitious View of Future

Technological Progress: The Singularity 100

Economic and National Security Implications

for the United States 128

Labor and Capital Intensive Industries:

The Average Worker and the Average Machine 135 Capital Intensive Industries are “Free Riders” 138

A More Conventional View of the Future 149

Chapter 4: Transition 156

The Basis of the Free Market Economy: Incentives 158

Where the Free Market Fails: Externalities 170

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THE LIGHTS IN THE TUNNEL / viii

Smoothing the Business Cycle and Reducing

Chapter 5: The Green Light 194

Appendix / Final Thoughts 209

Are the ideas presented in this book WRONG?

(Opposing arguments with responses) 210 Two Questions Worth Thinking About 223 Where are we now? Four Possible Cases 224 The Next 10-20 years: Some Indicators to Watch for 227

Machine Intelligence and the Turing Test 241

About / Contacting the Author 246 Notes 247

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Like most people, I have been giving a lot of thought tothe economic situation as the most serious crisis since theGreat Depression has continued to unfold Since I devel-

op software and run a high tech business, I also spend agreat deal of time thinking about computer technology,and so I began to focus on how economics and technolo-

gy intertwine The current crisis has been perceived asprimarily financial in origin, but is it possible that ever ad-vancing technology is an unseen force that has contributedsignificantly to the severity of the downturn? More impor-tantly, what economic impact will technological accelera-tion have as we anticipate recovery from the current cri-sis—and in the years and decades ahead? What will theeconomy of the future look like?

Among people who work in the field of computertechnology, it is fairly routine to speculate about the like-lihood that computers will someday approach, or possiblyeven exceed, human beings in general capability and intel-ligence Speaking at an industry conference in 2007,Google co-founder Larry Page said, “We have somepeople at Google [who] are really trying to build artificial

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THE LIGHTS IN THE TUNNEL / 2

intelligence and to do it on a large scale It’s not as far off

as people think.”1 Ray Kurzweil, a well-known inventor,author and futurist, states quite categorically that he ex-pects computers to become at least as intelligent as hu-mans by the year 2029.2 While other experts are far moreconservative about the prospect for machines that canachieve genuine intelligence, there can be little doubt thatcomputers and robots are going to become dramaticallymore capable and flexible in the coming years and dec-ades

What is the likely economic impact of machines orcomputers that begin to catch up with—and maybe evensurpass—the average person’s capability to do a typicaljob? Clearly, the employment market would be one of thefirst areas to feel that influence Put yourself in the posi-tion of a business owner and think of all the problems thatare associated with human employees: vacation, safetyrules, sick time, payroll taxes, poor perfor-mance…maternity leave If an affordable machine can donearly any routine job as well as a human worker, thenwhat business manager in his or her right mind would hire

a worker?

Even if computers never become truly intelligent,surely machines are likely to become far more capable interms of their ability to perform a relatively narrow range

of tasks The reality is that a substantial fraction of theroutine, specialized jobs held by average people—including many people with college degrees—simply donot really require the full intellectual breadth of a humanbeing This is the reason that a lot of jobs are boring If

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Introduction / 3

computers can already beat the best chess players in theworld, isn’t it likely that they will also soon be able to per-form many routine jobs? In fact, I think there are goodreasons to expect that machines may begin to approachthis more specialized level of “intelligence” within a dec-ade or two

Since many of the people who work in fields like tificial intelligence and robotics are talking about the futureprospects for these technologies on a fairly regular basis, Iassumed that a similar discussion must be going on amongeconomists Surely, the economists are thinking ahead Ifmachines suddenly get smarter and start doing many ofour jobs, then the economists will have a plan in place Atleast they will have thought about it; they’ll have somegood suggestions Right?

ar-Well, no It turns out that while technologists are tively thinking about, and writing books about, intelligentmachines, the idea that technology will ever truly replace alarge fraction of the human workforce and lead to perma-nent, structural unemployment is, for the majority of

ac-economists, almost unthinkable For mainstream

econo-mists, at least in the long run, technological advancementalways leads to more prosperity and more jobs This is

seen almost as an economic law Anyone who challenges

this “law of economics” is called a “neo-Luddite.” This isnot a compliment (We’ll talk about Luddites and the asso-ciated “Luddite fallacy” in some detail in Chapter 2 of thisbook.)

While most economists dismiss the question pletely, the technical people seem to be entirely caught up

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com-THE LIGHTS IN com-THE TUNNEL / 4

in the excitement of the technology itself and what itmight potentially promise There is some discussion of thefact that artificial intelligence might have serious impacts

on society, but much of this is focused on the threat oftruly advanced or even sentient machines in some way

“taking over.” There is little attention given to the moremundane and immediate threats to the job market and theoverall economy Perhaps the technologists just assumethat once the technology comes along, the economic is-sues will somehowwork themselves out

Now that is an unsupportable assumption It wouldprobably be reasonable to assume that technical problemswill sort themselves out Technology usually seems to find

a way But economic policy and political issues? Thinkback to 1993 Bill Clinton had just been elected and hadpromised to reform the health care system As we allknow, that effort failed The major issues back in 1993were very similar to what we continue to face in 2009 Asthis is being written, Congress is once again taking up theissue of comprehensive health care reform It has taken afull 16 years to get to this point, and still the outcome is by

no means certain

But what happened with technology? In 1993, hardlyanyone had heard of the Internet: it was something thatpeople in government and at universities used primarilyfor work-related email Some people had primitive cellphones Microsoft had just introduced Windows 3.1,which for the first time brought a usable graphical inter-face to IBM PC-compatible computers The evidence ispretty clear: a race between technology and our ability to

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Introduction / 5

reform our political and economic systems is really no race

at all So if we can foresee that technology is likely to have

a highly disruptive impact on our economy in the comingyears and decades, then we really need to start thinkingabout that well in advance

The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 onstrated quite conclusively that there is no good alterna-tive to the free market system Other economic systemssimply cannot compete In fact, it’s probably reasonable tosay that the free market economy is one of mankind’sgreatest inventions—ranking right up there with thewheel The wealth and progress that we enjoy in the indu-strialized world would not have come into being withoutthe underlying logic of capitalism Historically, technologyand the market economy have worked together to make usall more wealthy Will this always be true? Is it simply amatter of leaving the system we have in place?

dem-The reality is that the free market economy, as we derstand it today, simply cannot work without a viable la-bor market Jobs are the primary mechanism throughwhich income—and, therefore, purchasing power—is dis-tributed to the people who consume everything the econ-omy produces If at some point, machines are likely topermanently take over a great deal of the work now per-formed by human beings, then that will be a threat to thevery foundation of our economic system This is notsomething that will just work itself out This is somethingthat we need to begin thinking about—and that is theprimary subject of this book

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un-THE LIGHTS IN un-THE TUNNEL / 6

Once you identify and begin to think about the nomic ramifications of advancing technology, it becomesclear that these trends are already well established and mayeven underlie the current crisis to a significant extent Ifyou make some very logical, and even conservative, as-sumptions about where technology is likely to lead in thecoming years, much of the conventional wisdom aboutwhat the future will look like becomes unsupportable Inparticular, important trends such as globalization simplymay not play out in the way we have been led to expect If

eco-we do not recognize these issues and adapt to the changesthey imply, it will be very difficult—perhaps impossible—

to achieve a sustainable recovery that will lead to term prosperity in the years and decades to come

long-As we will see, technology is not just advancing ually: it is accelerating As a result, the impact may comelong before we expect it—and long before we are ready.And yet, this issue is simply not on the radar If after read-ing this book, you are concerned about the issues raisedhere, then I hope you will consider speaking out Perhaps

grad-if enough people start to discuss these issues, even theeconomists will take notice

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Chapter 1

What if technology progresses to the point where a stantial fraction of the jobs now performed by people areinstead performed autonomously by machines or comput-ers? Is that likely, or even possible? And if it is, what arethe implications for our economy?

sub-In this book, we are going to explore what increasingtechnological advancement, and in particular job automa-tion, could mean to the economies of developed countrieslike the United States and also to the world economy as awhole To do this, we are going to start by creating an im-aginary simulation (or mental video game) that shouldprovide some very useful insight into what we can expect

in the future

As we all know, in recent years the practice of shoring, or outsourcing jobs to countries like India wherewages are lower, has attracted a great deal of controversy.Many people in a variety of jobs and professions in theU.S and other developed countries are now very con-cerned that their jobs might eventually be moved overseas

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off-THE LIGHTS IN off-THE TUNNEL / 8

While offshoring seems to get most of the attention at themoment, we also know that automation—the completereplacement of human jobs by machines—continues to go

on in a variety of industries

There are certain conventional views that most of usaccept regarding these practices For example, we are toldthat although automation and offshoring may result in sig-nificant job losses in certain industries, types of jobs, orgeographic regions, this is part of the normal functioning

of the free market economy As jobs are eliminated in onearea, economic growth and innovation create new oppor-tunities As a result, new products and services are devel-oped, newbusinesses arise and newjobs are created

We also know that practices like the offshoring ofjobs and the relocation of manufacturing to low wagecountries like China are creating new opportunities forworkers in those countries As a result, a massive newmiddle class in being created As those newly wealthypeople enter the world market, they create dramatic newworldwide demand for consumer products and services.Businesses in countries throughout the world will thus en-joy access to newmarkets, and as a result, newjobs will becreated everywhere In short, the general belief is that thetrends toward globalization and automation may createtemporary displacements and pockets of unemployment,but ultimately, technological progress creates newjobs andmakes all of us more wealthy

In this chapter, we are going to start off by creating a

mental simulation that rejects these conventional wisdoms.

We are instead going to make the following assumption:

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