Techno-Optimism

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that job automation doesn’t have to be the job-displacing scourge that many think it is during an appearance at the Austin tech conference SXSW.

If people can pursue their passions and interests while robots handle the work, Ocasio-Cortez believes that we can all spend “more time enjoying the world we live in,” according to Fast Company.

“Not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage,” she said.

Occupy WALL-E Street

The U.S. Congresswoman argued that we should embrace a future society full of busy little workerbots — if and only if the government steps in to provide for people who find themselves out of a job.

“We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work,” Ocasio-Cortez said at the event. “We should not feel nervous about the tollbooth collector not having to collect tolls. We should be excited by that. But the reason we’re not excited about it is because we live in a society where if you don’t have a job, you are left to die.”

Take It Easy

To help provide for people, Ocasio-Cortez suggested possible solutions like taxing robot-generated income at 90 percent or distributing the wealth made by companies that automate their workforces, according to FastCo. After all, any corporation that can afford to invest in sophisticated robots and artificial intelligence can also afford to invest in people.

“Whether it’s a tax rate, whether it’s distributing wealth that’s created by automation — if we approach solutions to our systems and start entertaining ideas like that, then we should be excited about automation because of what it could potentially mean,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

READ MORE: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “We should be excited about automation” [Fast Company]

More on automation: North America Put More Robots to Work in 2018 Than Ever Before