24 ***^ Sunday 1 September 2019 The Sunday Telegraph
In the first extract from his new book ‘The AI Economy’, Roger Bootle,
chairman of Capital Economics, looks into the future of the robot age
In the first extract from his new book ‘The AI Economy’, Roger Bootle,
chairman of Capital Economics,looks into the future of the robot age
Features
B
ubbling enthusiasts
for robots and artificial
intelligence (AI) gush
technical about how
a new revolution is
going to transform
our lives. But it isn’t clear whether
the transformation is going to be
favourable or unfavourable. What I
read from the geeks is a mixture of
two distinctly different visions: first,
the idea that we all face a terrible
future – involving poverty, loss of
self-worth, or even annihilation – as
our creation, the robots, take over;
second, the idea that the revolution
is going to enrich us all and free
humanity from drudgery.
As an economist, I share the
second of these visions. I believe
that the AI revolution is broadly
a continuation of everything that
has happened since the Industrial
Revolution. And, make no mistake,
this is as much an economic as a
technological issue. In the process
of discussing the implications of
robots and AI, many writers of
a technical background have
ranged far and wide into the
territory of macroeconomics
and public policy. If
they take a negative
view, it is often a
misunderstanding
of economics that is
at the root of their
pessimism.
Those who see
the robotics and
AI revolution as
completely different
from anything that
has gone before
and, indeed, as
transformative, make
a severe error right
at the start. They say
that we should
consider aAI will leave us free
to be more human
world in which some form, or forms,
of robots/AI can do anything as
well or better, and as fast or faster,
than human beings. What is more,
we should assume that they cost
nothing to manufacture and maintain.
Supposedly, this is the world we are
rapidly moving towards. In such a
world wouldn’t there be devastating
consequences for employment – and,
indeed, for society overall?
You bet. I do not remotely dispute
this. Yet to think along these lines is to
assume away the essential issue right
at the beginning. Robots and AI are
far from costless. Like
other forms
of capital
investment,
developing
and
maintaining them
costs money.
Admittedly,
there areThis
revolution
will
release us
from the
dross jobs
that have
taxed our
spirit
ILLUSTRATION BY CAPTAIN Z FOR THE TELEGRAPHsome things that robots and AI
can do, and indeed are already
doing, better and more cheaply
than humans. But there are a
whole lot of other things that
they cannot do at all.
Moreover, there are many
things that they will never
be able to do better than
humans, and there
are still more that
they will not be able
to do as
cheaply.
We are yet
to discover the
full range
of thesethings,
but we can
already make
out the major
limitations to
what robots and AI
can do.
First, there appears
to be a quality in human
intelligence that, for all its
wonders, AI cannot match,
namely its ability to deal with the
uncertain, the fuzzy, and the logically
ambiguous.
Secondly, because of the innate
nature of human intelligence, people
are extremely flexible in being able
to perform umpteen possible tasks,
including those that were not foreseen
at first.
Thirdly, humans are social creatures
rather than isolated individuals.
Humans want to deal with other
humans. Robots will never be better
than humans at being human.
Now the AI geeks could counter
this third point by asking why our
human preferences and human nature
should take precedence over whatever
robots and AI can do and “want” to
do. The answer is simple: because
we have feelings and consciousness
while robots and AI, for the time
being anyway, do not. They are meremachines.
As a result, it is
humanity’s desires and
preferences that must call the
shots. If humans cannot easily
interact with a particular form of
AI, or if a robot cannot perform
according to a person’s wishes, as
with the robot maid that cannot
easily fold towels, then that is
the problem of the AI/robot, not
the person. “Man is the measure of all
things.”
Many AI enthusiasts say that such
excessive caution has been the
dominant story throughout history.
Everyone, they say, is cautious or
downright sceptical at first about
the speed and scope of possible AI
development. And then they are
overwhelmed by what happens in
practice.
But this notion, comforting
though it is to AI enthusiasts, is not
at all well founded. Admittedly, the
achievements of robots and AI are
staggering in many ways, but it is not
true to say that the history of this field
is of constant outperformance of prior
expectations. Indeed, I would argue
that, by and large, the truth is just the
opposite. The history is of repeated
disappointment as the geeks and
enthusiasts constantly over-promise
and under-deliver.
Just as with other developments
since the Industrial Revolution, in
some activities robots and AI will
replace human labour, but in
others they will enhance its
productive capacity. And there
will be umpteen new jobs
that we can now barely even
imagine.
This would be fully in
accordance with what has
happened over the last
200 years. If we manage
things properly, the result
will be a speeding up of
rates of economic growth
and productivity, with anExtracted from
The AI Economy:
Work, Wealth and
Welfare in the
Robot Age by
Roger Bootle. Buy
now for £16.99 at
books.telegraph.
co.uk or call
0844 871 1514
See the Business
section tomorrow
and Tuesday for
further extractsdd dd
mmmisennnts
iin
llllaccompanying pickup in the rate
of improvement of average living
standards.
In the course of these momentous
changes, particular individuals and
groups will suffer as their skills and
aptitudes suffer a drop in demand.
But these people will not necessarily
be the people and groups that
you imagine. For instance, a lot of
manual labour will be resistant to
encroachment by robots, which lack
manual dexterity and are unable to
move easily between different tasks.
One of the key features of the
coming revolution is that it will
increase the capital equipment
available to workers in the service
industries, in particular, in education
and healthcare, thereby substantially
increasing their productivity. This
is especially significant since weak
productivity growth in these sectors
has been a leading factor behind the
weak overall productivity growth
recently registered in most Western
economies.
With the increase in productive
capacity that robots and AI bring
comes a choice between increased
incomes and increased leisure. I
expect people on average to take a
middle path, with a reduction in the
average number of hours worked
over the year but not a wholesale
rejection of work in favour of leisure.
Before long, I fully expect a four-day
working week to become standard.
Increased leisure will involve
increased spending on leisure
activities, and this will give rise to
increased demand for employment
in those industries.
In short, contrary to the prevailing
pessimism that seems to surround
this subject, I see the robot and
AI revolution as being decidedly
positive for humanity, just like the
waves of economic progress since
the Industrial Revolution.
In one key characteristic,
though, it will be positive
because it is so different
from most of the economic
development that has
happened since then. What this
revolution will do is to release
human beings from many of
the dross jobs that have taxed
their spirit and eroded their
strength and enthusiasm, and
in the process it will leave them
free to be more truly human.RELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws