Still Think Robots Can't Do Your Job?: Essays on Automation and Technological Unemployment

Riccardo Campa

Still Think Robots Can't Do Your Job?

Essays on Automation and Technological Unemployment

STILL THINK ROBOTS CAN’T DO YOUR JOB?

Essays on Automation and Technological Unemployment

By Riccardo Campa

scientific committee

Antonio Camorrino – Federico II University in Neaples

Vitaldo Conte – Academy of Fine Arts in Rome

Michel Kowalewicz – Jagiellonian University in Krakow

Roberto Manzocco – City University of New York

Luciano Pellicani – Guido Carli Free International University for Social Studies in Rome

Salvatore Rampone – University of Sannio in Benevento

Stefan Lorenz Sorgner – John Cabot University in Rome

Daniele Stasi – University of Rzeszów

Piotr Zielonka – Kozminski University in Warsaw

Copyright D Editore © 2018. All right reserved.

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Index

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Technological Unemployment

1.1 Generalities

1.2. Luddism: The First Reaction

1.3. Classical Political Economy: The First Denial

1.4. The Conversion of David Ricardo

1.5. Karl Marx: Beyond Economic Theory

1.6. The Marginalists: Mathematics versus Luddite Fallacy

1.7. The Keynesians: Technological Unemployment as a Fact

1.8. Reaganomics: The New Denial

1.9. Artificial Intelligence: The Specter of a Jobless Society

1.10. Conclusions

Chapter 2. Automation, Education, Unemployment

2.1. The McKinsey scenario

2.2. What is missing in this picture?

2.3. An alternative scenario

2.4. Education in a jobless society

Chapter 3. The Rise of Social Robots

3.1. Social robots and social work

3.2. Effectiveness and safety of human-robot interaction

3.3. Small-scale robots

3.4. From navigation and manipulation to interaction

3.5. Scenario and persona: the challenge of verbal interaction

Chapter 4. Technological Growth and Unemployment

4.1. Technology and Unemployment: The Vexata Quaestio

4.2. Some methodological tools for scenario analysis

4.3. The unplanned end of work scenario

4.4. The planned end of robots scenario

4.5. The unplanned end of robots scenario

4.6. The planned end of work scenario

4.7. An ethical judgment

4.8. Conclusions

Chapter 5. Workers and Automata

5.1. Artificial Intelligence and Industrial Automation

5.2. Effects on the level of employment

5.3. Social stratification and the new generation robot

5.4. The need for a new socio-industrial policy

Chapter 6. Pure Science and the Posthuman Future

Chapter 7. Making Science by Serendipity

Bibliography

Note

Preface

This is one of those books that one writes hoping to be wrong. The question with which I begin the book has recently been asked quite often. I ask it also to myself: Do I still think robots cannot do my job? My personal answer is simply no. Sooner or later, there will be robots that can teach and do science.

In spite of the fact that this is a collection of academic works, I ask my readers to allow me the indulgence of introducing the topic by offering a personal story.

I have always been fascinated by technologies, old and new, and especially by Artificial Intelligence and robotics. Not by chance, therefore, before turning into a social scientist I studied electronics. Still, I could never turn my back to the unwanted collateral effects of technological development.

When I was a teenager, I worked in a factory in summertime as a manual worker in order to pay for my studies. It was the 1980s, when the first wave of robotization was hitting Italian industries. I remember that every week a new machine was hired by my company, and a few fellow workers fired. Being seasonal workers we were not protected by long term contracts.

One day a computerized scale was introduced in my department. It was pretty obvious that it was there to do the job of my own team. I was at once fascinated and scared by that machine. On the one hand I was curious to see how it worked, on the other I knew it might lead to my firing. When the meal break started, by getting close to the machinery, I heard the boss saying that the hiring manager was looking but they had not yet found a worker who could supervise its functioning. So instead of joining my colleagues at the canteen, I started reading the instruction manual.

When the bell rang to signal the end of the meal break, I went to the boss and told him that I was a student of electronics and I knew how the scale worked. He was quite happy to have the machinery immediately in function, and I was happy to leave the physical work and turn into a supervisor. Even though I had to wait until late that evening to eat, I did not even feel hungry. I was proud of myself, and I thought my parents would be proud of me also, if they just could see me. I was just sixteen years old and it was only a modest seasonal job, but to me that career advancement meant a lot.

Still, what I predicted would happen, happened. My friends and colleagues were fired. I knew it was not their fault. Even if all of them did what I did—give up eating and study the instruction manual—only one supervisor was needed. The machine would have done the rest. I also know that some of those friends did not find a new job for long time.

This happened almost thirty-five years ago. It was my first experience with technological unemployment. By resorting to sociological jargon, I can say that my first knowledge in the sociology of work came from participant observation.

This probably explains why, once I became a professional sociologist, I focused so much on technology and future of work. I wrote much on these topics in both Italian and English. In this volume I present several of my works written in the English language. As often happens in a collection of essays published at different times, a few concepts and quotes are repeated. However, I wanted to leave the writings in their original form, as they were published by scientific journals. Here is a short description of the chapters.

The first chapter traces a brief history of the concept of technological unemployment. The historical narration covers four centuries, since the beginning of the industrial revolution up to the present. As a consequence, it is highly selective, mainly based on sources in the English language and referring to only a few of the many social scientists involved in the debate. The scopes of the inquiry are essentially two. The first is to show that focusing on technological unemployment as an idea – and not simply as a phenomenon – is appropriate, because of the high level of controversy that still characterizing the debate. The second is to provide an understanding of critical societal changes occurring in the twenty-first century.

The second chapter proposes a short-term scenario analysis concerning the possible relations between automation, education, and unemployment. In my view, the scenario analysis elaborated by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2013 underestimates the problem of technological unemployment and proposes an education model which is inadequate for handling the challenges of twenty-first century disruptive technologies. New technological advances – such as the automation of knowledge work – will also affect the jobs of highly educated workers. Therefore, policy makers will not avert massive unemployment only by extending the study of math, science, and engineering. A better solution could be the establishment of a universal basic income, and the elaboration of an education model capable of stimulating creativity and the sense of belonging to a community.

In the third chapter I explore the most recent literature on social robotics and argue that the field of robotics is evolving in a direction that will soon require a systematic collaboration between engineers and sociologists. After discussing several problems relating to social robotics, I emphasize that two key concepts in this research area are scenario and persona. These are already popular as design tools in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and an approach based on them is now being adopted in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). As robots become more and more sophisticated, engineers will need the help of trained sociologists and psychologists in order to create personas and scenarios and to teach humanoids how to behave in various circumstances.

The aim of the fourth chapter is to explore the possible futures generated by the development of artificial intelligence. The focus is on the social consequences of automation and robotization, with special attention on the problem of unemployment. To start, I make clear that the relation between technology and structural unemployment is still hypothetical and, therefore, controversial. Secondly, as proper scenario analysis requires, I do not limit myself to predicting a unique future; instead I extrapolate from present data four different possible scenarios: 1) unplanned end of work; 2) planned end of robots; 3) unplanned end of robots; and 4) planned end of work. Finally, I relate these possible developments not just to observed trends but also to social and industrial policies presently at work in our society which may change the course of these trends.

The aim of chapter five is to determine if there is a relation between automation and unemployment within the Italian socio-economic system. Italy is second in Europe and fourth in the world in terms of robot density, and among the G7 it is the nation with the highest rate of youth unemployment. Establishing the ultimate causes of unemployment is a very difficult task, and – as we said – the notion itself of ‘technological unemployment’ is controversial. Mainstream economics tends to correlate the high rate of unemployment in Italy with the low flexibility of the labor market and the high cost of manpower. Little attention is paid to the impact of artificial intelligence and robots on the level of employment. With reference to statistical data, we will show that automation can be seen at least as a contributory cause of unemployment in Italy. In addition, we will argue that both Luddism and anti-Luddism are two faces of the same coin both focusing on technology itself (the means of production) instead of on the system (the mode of production). Banning robots or ignoring the problems of robotization are not effective solutions. A better approach would consist in combining growing automation with a more rational redistribution of income.

The sixth chapter explores a more remote scenario, namely the hypothesis that machines could sooner or later wake up, become conscious, and have a role also in the pursuit of knowledge. It is a scenario analysis that often goes under the label of transhumanism and predicts the advent of the Singularity. Since the industrial revolution, humans have tended to reduce science to the ancillary role of an engine of technology. But the quest for knowledge using rational, scientific methods started at least two and a half millennia ago with the aim of setting humans free from ignorance. The first scientists and philosophers (at least that we know about because they wrote things down) saw knowledge as the goal, not as the means. The main goal was to understand the nature of matter, life, conscience, intelligence, our origin, and our destiny, not only to solve practical problems. Being skeptical of myths and religions, they gave themselves the goal to reach The Answer via rational and empirical inquiry. Transhumanism is a unique philosophy of technology because one of its goals is the creation of a posthuman intelligence. Several scientists share this hope: Making technology an ancillary of science, and not vice versa. By evolving and reaching the Singularity, the hope is that posthumans can achieve one the greatest dreams of sentient beings: finding The Answer.

In the seventh and last chapter I address the role of serendipity in the development of science and technology. It is a review of Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber’s book The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity. A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science. Although this book does not treat the issue of technological unemployment directly, it critically discusses the orthodox Marxist theory on automation. According to this theory, scientific and technological discoveries are products of necessity. Industrial automation could not be developed in ancient times, because of the slavery mode of production. The cost of manpower was very low, so there was no need to produce machines. In the capitalistic mode of production characteristic of modern times, however, slaves are not available, so machines can fit the bill. While there is truth in this narrative, it is an oversimplification, because – as Merton and Barber convincingly argue – many scientific discoveries and technical inventions depend on chance and serendipity. Indeed, the fact that Heron and other Alexandrine engineers already projected and built automatons in ancient times does not fit Marxist theory.

If we ask common people if we need conscious computers and robots, the answer would probably be mixed, with – I guess – a majority against the idea. Personally, I am not prejudicially against the idea, but I think we should also take into account the possibility that conscious Artificial Intelligence may emerge from a serendipitous discovery, in an unplanned way and regardless of its social necessity.

In fact, as the development of Artificial Intelligence progresses, we may ask whether serendipity – intended as the capability of making fortuitous discoveries, or the ability to find something while we are looking for something else – will be a virtue we share with our mechanical children, or whether it will be a factor – maybe THE factor – that continues to differentiate humans from intelligent machines. In any case, we should consider the role of serendipity when we reflect and speculate about the future of work.

Acknowledgements

I am particularly indebted to Alan Sparks for his editorial contributions to various parts of this book. Besides being an award-winning non-fiction writer, Alan is also an accomplished computer scientist and astute social observer, and discussions with him have been very stimulating also with regard to content.

I am grateful also to Catarina Lamm for having translated from Italian into English chapters four and five of this book [1], and to Matt Hammond and Lucas Mazur for having proofread other fragments of the book. It goes without saying