The Paradox of Technology: How Human Labor Sustains Change but Decreases in Value

People are losing jobs like driving, court evidence, and playing in movies because of the rise of robots with self-learning programs and internet links. This has led to the paradox that human labor sustains technology changes and gets better paid, but the economic value of our work in new jobs decreases. We get paid more to do less important things.

For example, in Britain in 1800, most people still worked on the land. People had to put in a lot of work to make food, which was the main result of the economy and what ancient economics were most interested in.

Then came the agricultural revolution, which spread new tools and ways of running farms, making each farm worker much more productive. Millions of people who worked in agriculture were no longer needed, but they were free to do other kinds of work, like making cotton shirts that were nice to have (but still helped people live).

The new change in output caused by algorithms follows the same economic rules. The only way robots can take our jobs is if they make the world better. There will be a loss of hundreds of millions of jobs, but that doesn't mean there won't be any paid work. People will always want more things done for them, even if small and unimportant, like making cute costumes for their pets. And there will be new people who can do them cheaply because robots will take all our old jobs and we won't have anything else to do.

The economics study tells us that people can be paid to meet them as long as they want. The past of technology shows two trends. First, working conditions have gotten better over time. As we went from hand-hoeing fields to standing over looms and production lines to sitting in swivel chairs in offices, moving electronic paper around, and having meetings in air-conditioned rooms, the work got easier on our bodies, which is clear. The first jobs to be automated (or helped by machines) were the ones that were hard on the body and unpleasant.

But since we don't have to do messy, heavy work anymore and instead handle the people who manage the tools that do the real work, "work" itself feels less specific. From the inside, it doesn't matter if what you're being paid to do is meant to fix AIDS or sell more photocopier lease-service deals; they both look and feel the same.

Second, the jobs themselves need to be more important. As we move down society's list of things to do, it becomes less clear that what we do makes a real difference other than giving us money. The main trouble is that business and personal values are different. As we move down the economic value chain, the things we get paid to do are more likely to be useful only because of the social structures we have, not because of who we are as people.

If work keeps getting less hard and less important, it will become more like a shared role-playing game and less like real life. People can be pushed to work many hours a week by making them think they are competing against each other. With the rise of robots, we can turn work from a boring necessity that steals our time and respect into the freedom that makes us more human. Even though some current jobs may not be as important as others, they can still help people learn more about themselves and help society grow.

As robots make our society richer, we can pay for more jobs like this. But how we spend our "automation dividend" depends on how we spend it, not on economic rules.

To make work a choice in a society that will soon be as rich as ours, we should help people decide for themselves which jobs are worth doing. Economics doesn't tell us exactly what our robot future will be like, but it does help us map out possible problems and possibilities. We shouldn't try to stop the change from happening, but we should try to shape it so that everyone can gain from the robots' amazing wealth.

People get jobs because we need them, and paid work is the main way to get a piece of the wealth that a market economy and technology improvements have created. Whether or not those jobs are important on their own is up to chance. Work should be a choice in a country that will soon be as rich as ours. People will need a different way to get a piece of the robot payout if work is to be a choice. The best option is a guaranteed universal basic income, giving everyone, not just people over 65, a government salary. Taxes on capital would pay for a payout to each person that would provide them with enough money to live a good, but not luxurious, life.

People with a basic income can decide if a job is worth doing because they have more freedom to turn down jobs that don't make sense to them, either because the work is useless or because the conditions are demeaning. This greatly affects the computer economy's appearance, especially if it starts soon. Human workers with generic skills will be able to negotiate for a better deal if they have a better fall-back position, and employers will compete to offer better working conditions, including things that middle-class professionals already have, like flexible schedules, respect, and a say in management decisions.

Automation has given our society much more time, which we should all share. With a basic income, everyone can choose what to do with their own time. We will only do paid work if what we'll be doing with and for other people is important enough to make us give up (part of) the freedom to be good parents or read every book in the Western library. From this perspective, time is not just something you sell but also something you spend.

Demand and quantity affect wages. When everyone has a good income, how much people get paid will depend much more on how they feel about the work. Artists and marine scientists will happily work for very little, and more people can take these jobs. Jobs like cleaning and pushing papers, which are boring, unpleasant, or don't do much, will have to pay a lot more to get people to do them. People will only be left to do the jobs they find most important.

In conclusion, the rise of robots allows us to change work from a boring chore that steals our time and respect into freedom that makes us more human. By thinking about our morals and getting involved in politics, we can make the world ready for the robot revolution.

Art: midjourney.com

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