The XXIst Century

Eduardo del Buey
Foto:Ap
La Jornada Maya

Miércoles 9 de mayo, 2018

The common assumption has always been that technological advances lead to human progress.

But is this true in the XXIst Century?

Perhaps, but it all depends on how societies and governments deal with the upheavals rapid technological change will produce and make the transition less painful and the end result beneficial for all.

Technology plus population growth may be creating major challenges for which our leaders have no solution.

There are three key elements to my concerns: the rapid rise of robotics in manufacturing; the population shifts that this phenomenon may produce; and the potential effects on the environment.

On April 3, 2017, Richard Waters wrote in the [i]Financial Times[/i] that, “An information vacuum about the sweeping impact of robotics and artificial intelligence has left governments badly positioned to respond to the coming upheaval in employment, say two US professors who have been coordinating a broad study on the subject”.

He went on to speak about a recent study by MIT Professor Erik Brynjolfsson who has warned that the jobs upheaval was already causing greater inequality and social strain and, that without a better understanding of the forces at work, governments would not be able to deal adequately with the fallout.

Do robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) create more jobs than they eliminate?

On March 28, 2017, James Vincent reported in The Verge that economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo studied the US labor market between 1990 and 2007, looking at employment rates in different areas and industries while controlling for the influence of factors like increased imports from China and the offshoring of jobs.

They found that each new robot added to the workforce meant the loss of between 3 and 5.6 jobs in the local commuting area.

While technology makes work more efficient, this too may well result in fewer jobs since more will be accomplished with fewer workers.

How many millions does this translate into around the world, and what do we do with workers made redundant by technology?

Most of them are unprepared for this new technological economy and will require significant retraining.

Are governments creating the educational and vocational centers capable of handling increasing numbers of people whose skills have been rendered obsolete by technology? Do governments even understand what must be created? More importantly, are governments developing policies to support eventual retraining and working along with the private sector to identify new areas for job growth and the most effective way of achieving this? Finally, do they have the resources to do so?

And, in many societies where citizens are calling for less government and less public spending, is the political climate supportive of such initiatives?

Governance has always evolved and will continue to do so. But, in the XXIst Century multilateral approaches and collaboration with industry and educators will be of paramount importance if the transition is to be made with as little disruption as possible.

This leads to my second point of concern.

Can today’s governments alone embark on a massive program of retraining and reeducating people around the world to deal with the new jobs that technology will create, and deal with the millions of workers who will be left behind in this technological revolution? Can they raise the necessary funding and convince voters that the funding will be used wisely? Can they sell a vision of change and adaptation to a skeptical electorate?

Ideally and pragmatically, this must be coordinated between governments and the private sector. Governments and politicians are generally lost with regards to technology. They cannot and should not do it alone.

A major concern is that these potentially job displacing robots do not pay taxes, nor do they contribute to the local economy the way that people do. Without progressive policies that encourage technological advancement whilst retraining the labor force, this will deprive governments of the very tax base required to deal with the phenomenon of unemployment that is arising with the advent of the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.

This can be addressed between governments and corporations, but the cross-border challenges will be daunting as countries seek to maintain both sovereignty and their competitive edge.

My second concern is how do we cope with the phenomenon of migration to places where jobs are available?

The world’s 65 million refugees already pose a major challenge to global capabilities which is further complicated by rising nationalist governments fighting migration and immigration and determined to reduce or eliminate the flow of people into their country.

Can governments cope with the migration phenomenon as they rail against the multilateral system created to deal with such challenges in the first place?

These initiatives cannot be carried out by governments alone. They will require multi-national consultation and coordination with industry facilitated via trans-national bodies.

My third point of concern is the impact on the environment of such national and international migrations on a global scale.

Migration to places with job possibilities will place increased stresses on the ability of local governments to provide the necessary infrastructure and services required by new arrivals.

The availability of water, housing, local transportation, schools, and hospitals will determine the success of such movements of displaced workers on the one hand, while other centers that lose some or most of their population will have to cope with the economic impact.

All of this will tax an already fragile environment and require both an investment of resources and a change in fundamental human behavior and expectations to ensure that the earth’s ability to sustain life is not increasingly imperiled by the environmental impact of large-scale population shifts and continued population growth.

In conclusion, national governments will have to take steps to ensure that migration is even more closely linked to regional development initiatives taking into account the environmental and societal consequences of large scale changes to population within local infrastructure.

Are governments designed to cope with such massive long-term problems, when most politicians are focused on the next election and tend to limit their actions to the current electoral cycle?

Do these challenges require massive multilateral efforts or can nation states deal with them on their own?

Overall, governance in the XXIst Century will be challenged to deal effectively with these phenomena. It will require even more open communication and collaboration within and between countries.

We all have to start addressing this.

The question is how?

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