Right so we covered common objections to AI use, AI and art, AI Ethics, and now finally a few thoughts on humans.
We need to rethink how we treat joblessness and wealth distribution. Now, I already posted my thoughts about this here and here. But to summarize, I think we need a mix of socialism and capitalism. We need socialism for things like healthcare and capitalism for coffee kiosks and big screen TVs. And maybe a mix of both for some industries that are just very well regulated markets (like airlines, we don’t want them to fall out of the sky and kill people, so we do need regulation, but markets seem to do just fine on allocating that scarce resource).
Basically, I think we need a more complicated nuanced approach to make our society work best for all. While I don’t think we should type “run humanity” in AI and call it a day, I think it can help start making the system work better for everyone. We can start fixing problems like for example, when a social program works well at a small scale, but when we roll it out at a large scale it goes badly. Or we can use large amounts of data to make better decisions.
AI could one day unlock things like smart toilets that identify cancer before it becomes a problem, and it has already helped identify drugs invented for one purpose and then used to treat another disease. Chat bots can be made to teach people at their level and make sure students really know the material before moving on. They can allocate scarce resources in fair and equitable ways. If a problem is too big or hard for a single human or even a team of humans to solve, AI can help solve it.
Despite the boons AI offers, I still think we need to think about what society we want to build. Do we want people who don’t work or can’t work to starve and live in tents? Or do we want to make sure people are taken care of even if we can’t measure them in GDP?
I think the reason we are not always good at helping the less fortunate is that no one likes a free loader. Most people have had an experience with a coworker who seems to do nothing but play on their phone all day, and yet collected the same paycheck as anyone else. That irritates people who are working hard, understandably so. This is why almost all social programs try to sort out people who are “deserving” of benefits. Like requiring to look for a job to maintain getting a check from the government, or requiring sobriety to get housing.
They all fall flat for some people. For example, kicking drug addiction is a lot harder when living on the street. Housing First programs, which don’t require sobriety, keep people housed at much higher rates, and research hasn’t found that they make addiction worse. Yet many homeless programs still require sobriety first and housing second. Unemployment is equally flawed. There are situations where people can’t find a job if they wanted to. I remember hearing a story once about a doctor declaring able body people as disabled because the major employer in the town closed, and there just wasn’t enough jobs. Rather than see people losing their homes and being forced to leave, and further decimating the businesses in the area from the exodus, he just started declaring people disabled so they could get disability checks.
All of the ways social services are dysfunctional are because no one likes a free loader. The thought of giving someone money or housing for doing nothing or adding nothing to society just doesn’t sit right. However, I think those people do add to society and do something, we just don’t have good ways of measuring. First off, I believe every person is important to someone. Whether they are family member, a partner, friend, caretaker, confidant, or just a fun person to be around, every one has value to someone. So, they aren’t doing nothing, just by existing they are adding social capital to each other.
Now even the most reclusive of free loader who hides in an apartment has to spend money on something at some point in their life. So even if we gave out a universal basic income and guaranteed everyone would have at the very least a 10 foot by 10 foot room to themselves that hermit would give back to the economy by spending money.
And finally, the last argument that people typically give against universal basic income is that people would never work. I think that needs to be amended. I think people would still work. They just wouldn’t work shitty jobs. I remember going to this café right after COVID, and it was bustling. I just happened to talk to the owner and I had heard that people were struggling to hire during COVID and ask how she was able to hire so many people (I was recruiting for business with similar job pools. No one was applying), she shrugged and said. “I pay a good wage and treat them right.”
In a world of Universal Basic Income, people would still work, they just wouldn’t work for assholes. Don’t underestimate, luxury, vanity, or the desire to have experiences that having a paycheck can give a person. People would still work to make money for going on cruise ships and getting their nails done. They would work for fancy lattes, and nights out with their friends. They just wouldn’t let people abuse them.
When work becomes optional, we will get naturally more choosey where we work. There are slews of people who could retire that don’t because they’ll be bored. My father substitute teaches not because he needs the money, but it’s better than sitting in the house all day. I for one, wouldn’t mind a world where work was a choice rather than a survival mechanism.
Let all the businesses who mistreat employees go out of business. When an employer treats their employee right, people work harder rather than cutting corners. And this world would be easier for employers too. If a person has a soft place to land, and all work is voluntary, then employers can terminate employment too. Decouple a person’s survival with their work status and the math on a job being worth it completely changes.
Because AI may one day put us in a situation where there just aren’t as many jobs as there are people to fill them, we need to restructure our society. While my ideas are admittedly simplistic and real world deployment would be a challenge, I think all humans deserve a certain standard of living regardless of whether they work. That simple idea could save us from the ugliest problems that result from wanting to punish the free loader.
And if you really want to punish the free loader, just know that they’ll never have the same life that working will give a person, but we won’t be taking down other people in order to punish the few. Honestly, if we made work optional, the people who do work will be better workers because they’ll have chosen to be there. And if you’re worried about some jobs just never having enough workers, we have levers for that too. Pay them more. I’ll go back to the café owner. Treat people right and pay them well, and they’ll work for you. (Also, as a patron of the café, they were a little pricey, but not as pricey as other places with less friendly staff. They were packed with people every time I went. Paying people well and not raising prices can happen. The desire by the people who write the checks just has to be there).
The world can be a better place, we need to decide on what we want to be and do the work to make it happen.
Continue reading the AI Statement series: Next up, Part V: Aaron Frale →