I worked in the mainframe computer business for large banks for twenty years. AI was the discussion rage in 2000. Has it finally arrived?
The Wall Street Journal asks What Will AI Do to Your Job? Take a Look at What It’s Already Doing to Coders
AI seems set to do to computer programming—and possibly other kinds of so-called knowledge work—what automation has done to other jobs, from the factory floor and the warehouse, to the checkout aisle and the call center. In those industries, the end result of widespread automation has been the elimination of countless roles—and their replacement with ones that require either relatively little skill and knowledge, or a great deal more, with workers at either end of this spectrum being rewarded accordingly.
In other words, software is eating the software industry.
Now, AI is automating knowledge work, and the implications for the half of the U.S. workforce who are employed in such jobs are profound. It’s true that these white-collar jobs have been evolving for decades as technology has improved, but the elimination of middle-skilled jobs seems set to accelerate as AI is institutionalized in the workplace.
The job- and wage-polarizing effects of automation on an industry can interrupt the usual ladder of hiring and development, warns Yossi Sheffi, a professor of engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose latest book is on the future of work. “One of the main challenges of the future is how to hire junior people who don’t yet have the experience to step in when the machine doesn’t work,” says Dr. Sheffi.
Many experienced developers I spoke with expressed skepticism about the ability of AI coding tools to take over the most essential tasks of programming, including designing solutions to complex problems, and understanding existing libraries of code at companies that have been building up their systems for years, or even decades.
In 1892, the first automatic telephone exchange was invented, says Dr. Sheffi. By 1930, America still had 235,000 telephone exchange operators. That said, the double bind that many earlier-career developers currently find themselves in is a cautionary tale for us all. If AI disrupts a field at the same time that workers in it face other challenges, no matter what historians say, the impact of automation on jobs, and those who hold them, can be swift.
In my experience, science, and especially the promise of science, moves slower than one might expect. I recall the AI rage in 2000. And for the past 10 years I have heard things like all white collar jobs are at risk.
2012 Paul Krugman Flashback
On December 26, 2012, Paul Krugman asked Is Growth Over?
Consider for a moment a sort of fantasy technology scenario, in which we could produce intelligent robots able to do everything a person can do. Clearly, such a technology would remove all limits on per capita GDP, as long as you don’t count robots among the capitas. All you need to do is keep raising the ratio of robots to humans, and you get whatever GDP you want.
Smart machines may make higher GDP possible, but also reduce the demand for people — including smart people. So we could be looking at a society that grows ever richer, but in which all the gains in wealth accrue to whoever owns the robots.
Bill Gates Says Tax the Robots
In 2017, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said Tax the Robots
In a recent interview with Quartz, Gates said that a robot tax could finance jobs taking care of elderly people or working with kids in schools, for which needs are unmet and to which humans are particularly well suited. He argues that governments must oversee such programs rather than relying on businesses, in order to redirect the jobs to help people with lower incomes. The idea is not totally theoretical: EU lawmakers considered a proposal to tax robot owners to pay for training for workers who lose their jobs, though on Feb. 16 the legislators ultimately rejected it.
“You ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down the speed” of automation, Gates argues. That’s because the technology and business cases for replacing humans in a wide range of jobs are arriving simultaneously, and it’s important to be able to manage that displacement. “You cross the threshold of job replacement of certain activities all sort of at once,” Gates says, citing warehouse work and driving as some of the job categories that in the next 20 years will have robots doing them.
Bernie Sanders Says Tax the Robots
On Face the Nation, February 19, 2023, Bernie Sanders called for a robot tax.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You are- when you talk about American workers, you’re proposing a new cabinet level agency to focus on the future of work and workers. You talk about taxing robots who might replace humans. Isn’t the Labor Department supposed to be doing these things?
SEN. SANDERS: Well, theoretically, but I don’t think we’re doing enough. Look, this is a huge issue. There is a revolution taking place now with artificial intelligence and robotics. Okay? Millions of workers are going to lose their jobs. Who’s making those decisions, Margaret? You hear it debated in Congress? I don’t. Alright, so guys who sit at the head, often guys, of large multinational corporations are saying, “Look, we can do this, we can get rid of all these people over here, we can make even more money.” So we’re talking about a transformational moment throughout the world and the United States. I want working people to be involved. And if we come up with the technology – I’m not anti-technology, if there is a technology that can do- increase worker productivity, who benefits from that? Just the guy who owns the company? Or does the worker benefit? So if we can reduce the workweek, is that a bad thing? It’s a good thing. But I don’t want to see the people on top simply be the only beneficiaries of this revolution in technology.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you agree with Bill Gates in taxing robots?
SEN. SANDERS: That’s one way to do it. Yeah, absolutely.
The Robot Tax Debate
The lead image is from the 2020 WSJ article The ‘Robot Tax’ Debate Heats Up
The Journal presents both sides of the argument. Here are a couple of snips.
A robot tax could serve multiple purposes, slowing job-destroying automation while raising revenue to supplement shrinking taxes paid by human workers. It could take a few different forms. Lawmakers could limit or slow down deductions for businesses that replace humans with robots, or they could hit businesses with levies equivalent to the payroll taxes paid by employers and employees.
“It’s one of the more harebrained ideas. Just about every aspect of it’s wrong,” says Dean Baker, a progressive economist who says the country should be trying to improve flagging productivity growth, not inhibiting it. “The problem that we’re ostensibly trying to fix isn’t there.”
But what if the next wave of robots is different? What if robots aren’t like laptops or sewing machines or any other technology we’ve ever seen and they replace jobs without creating new ones?
“That’s the bazillion-dollar question,” says Shu-Yi Oei, a Boston College law professor. “Is this the same as the last manufacturing age? Or is it really something new?”
There’s a real risk that the next wave of automation and artificial intelligence will displace workers and not create enough jobs, says Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who co-wrote a recent study that found technology already contributing to slower employment growth.
Tax Not the Robots
In 2021, the Brookings Institute said Tax Not the Robots.
What is a robot anyway?
Brookings argues there is little evidence that robots take jobs. Overall, I happen to agree. It’s called creative destruction. In 1900, nine out of 10 jobs was on the farm. Now, almost none are. Jobs didn’t vanish but farm jobs did.
It’s amusing that Bill Gates, someone who made all of his money being a ruthless capitalist, is now on the same side as socialist Bernie Sanders.
A robot tax would slow down productivity, innovation, and standards of living. Every technology advancement in history has raised standards of living. A robot tax is a demand for slower increases in standards of living.
What? Me Worry?
I am not worried a robot will replace me. On a day to day basis, except for known economic report schedules, I have no idea what I am going to write about.
Today, I had no idea I was going to write about AI. Then I had no idea when I started writing that my post would morph into robot taxes.
If I have no idea what I am going to write about, nor will the robot that supposedly will replace me.
But I am certain that AI will heat up the debate once again over robot taxes.
