Is artificial intelligence killing capitalism? Why mandatory computational science courses are necessary for the survival of the middle class. Will Follow Dec 21, 2017 · 33 min read

In the past year a significant number of the world’s thought leaders have stepped forth to discuss the ramifications of breakthroughs occurring in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence; with some of the gravest warnings coming from some of the world’s foremost thinkers in science and technology. On one hand, sit those who believe robotics and artificial intelligence will usher in an unprecedented age of human evolution. On the other, those who believe the destruction of mankind is all but inevitable. In either camp, the focus is on the eventual “singularity”, the point at which robotics and artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous in society, perhaps even integrated into the biological existence of man. However, just as Rome can withstand an enemy at its gates, but not an enemy within, the social, political and economic implications of even the most “friendly” technology, is certain to cause sweeping socially disruptive change, years before the risk of any danger from artificial intelligence becomes a concern. What’s more, the current education system fails to prepare the majority of the workforce for the middle class jobs in the technology industry that are both available today and will be a hallmark of the future. In preparation of a second industrial revolution, all states should mandate immersive computer science courses in their educational institutions.

1) The Futuristic Head Fake: Summoning in the End of the World

“Many tech oligarchs see everything they are doing to help us, and all their benevolent manifestors, as streetlamps on the road to a future where, as Steve Wozniak says, humans are the family pets.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/elon-musk-billion-dollar-crusade-to-stop-ai-space-x

Type artificial intelligence into any search engine and you will immediately be greeted by a host of opinion articles discussing both the remarkable breakthroughs of some of the foremost minds ever to grace the face of the Earth and some of the most frightening apocalyptic depictions of what such technology has the potential to do.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” and it takes even the most technologically inept mind mere seconds to summon imagery of some of the greatest science fiction blockbusters coming to life. An immortal army of cyborgs endowed with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s meticulously muscled frame busting the door down with a shotgun is sure to frighten even the bravest among us. What’s more, I make no claim as to the veracity of science’s ability to develop such androids. It is just that I suspect you are much more likely to be undone at the hands of a Roomba long before that scientifically-birthed Mr. Universe comes to send you to your maker.

It is not that I think your Roomba is an inherently dangerous device. In fact, I think quite the opposite. It is a beautiful solution to the vexing cleaning chores of the common man. A marvel of modern technology, freeing an individual from the time consuming task of housekeeping, to engage in leisure activity, learn a new skill, devote more time to one’s livelihood or otherwise devote to a life well lived. It is by all accounts a perfect example of automation; a mundane undesirable task from which the human can be fully eliminated. It also metaphorically represents an inflection point from which many in society may not be able to recover.

2) Addition by Subtraction

The critical word in the preceding passage was “eliminated”. For some time now, technology has been almost wholly concerned with making business (and life generally) more efficient through the elimination of the human. This elimination historically has occurred primarily in fields where the work is most undesirable or dangerous. The dishwasher removes the human from the function of washing dishes. The remote controlled bomb tech removes the human from the immediate vicinity of a potentially deadly incendiary device. As a society we have largely had few complaints about being eliminated, because this technology has been of great benefit to mankind. It has removed danger, extended the average lifespan, spurred efficiency and contributed to global economic growth, among of myriad of other benefits.

The task of any great manager is delegation. The tyranny of time governs us all and the less time we have to spend on a single task the more we can focus on higher level human functions. Tasks we enjoy, the people we love, our happiness, our passions; our quest on the path to enlightenment. Efficiency and safety through elimination; take out the human, substitute in the technology.

Surely, this has already caused the extinction of certain jobs. But for the most part, these jobs were undesirable or so dangerous a human should not have been doing them anyway. It has also changed the nature of jobs still in existence, but, for the most part, it has made them easier.

My grandfather, a now retired attorney born in the 1920s, used to spend countless hours poring over volumes of books in search of helpful case law. Paralegals would assist him, after which he would develop an argument dictated to a secretary, who would type out his case brief on a type writer, provide the necessary finishing and mail said case brief to court, opposing counsel and client. Today, his grandson, also an attorney, can simply sign into a subscription service, type a few key words into an algorithm and have all of the relevant case law provided to him within a few seconds. He can then type up a case brief on his laptop, and when finished send said case brief to the client, judge and opposing counsel via email (court permitting).

Technology has enhanced our lives, in large part by removing us from portions of it and integrating itself into it. Some technologies have in fact become so useful, that we are unable to separate ourselves from it. If you want to work in modern America, a smart phone and a computer are not really a choice; it is a part of your being.

“We’re already cyborgs…The interface is through finger movements or speech, which are slow…[but] your phone and your computer are [already] extensions of you.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/elon-musk-billion-dollar-crusade-to-stop-ai-space-x

3) Increased Machine Capacity, Decreased Demand for Workers

Removing the dangerous, mundane tasks of life causes no undue mental anguish to even the most conservative among us. Access to a constantly growing worldwide network of shopping, entertainment and knowledge at one’s fingertips is hardly anything short of unimaginably convenient. But what happens when technology is no longer content to sit mindlessly in the hands of an idiot?

No, I have not fallen back into the world of science fiction, where a mental skynet decides we are expendable (although according to some of the foremost minds in the industry that is a very real possibility). My question rather, is what happens when technology’s capacity extends past the mundane or dangerous tasks to which we have assigned its existence?

The most obvious answer to this question is the same thing that always happens in a capitalistic society, that is, whatever is most efficient (that is cheapest to supply to produce a product for which there is sufficient demand). And it is because of this answer that well before we ever need worry of a mental skynet plotting our destruction, most of society will already be in danger of surrendering its economic and political vitality.

This article will not undertake the task of examining the finer points of supply and demand, but rather will assume that when it comes to a choice between a worker or an automated mechanism, whoever is cheaper, produces a more predictable-reproducible result, and provides the highest quality good or service, will win. In short, whoever provides more profit to the economic risk taker, i.e. the owner of the enterprise.

Because as expenses go, humans tend to be the most expensive (and unpredictable) component of any business, I do not think it will be particularly controversial to further assume that in almost all instances, economics will generally dictate the elimination of the human worker for the machine worker if the machine worker has the capacity to accomplish the necessary task.

It should further not be particularly controversial to assume that the less “cerebral” the function, the faster such function can be replaced, leading to a widening wealth disparity between the lowest paid workers (whose skills are more repetitious and more easily replaced) and the highest paid workers (whose skills are more cerebral and less easily replaced) that is already underfoot.

What I am most concerned with now, however, is the “extreme” economic scenario. The one in which even these so called “cerebral” functions are replaced by a machine endowed with the requisite capacity for accomplishing such task.

4) The Death of the “Employee”

The instinct to survive is the basis of human nature and the fundamental reason why capitalism is historically the most successful socioeconomic system ever conceived. It is also the primary reason for the disparity of resources that exists across groups of people (which we refer to as “classes”) and the resulting way in which each group lives relative to each other. Put simply, we go to work because we have a biological dependence on consumption. In a capitalistic society, we must produce because we must consume.

At its most basic, in a capitalistic system, the value of your “production” to society dictates the resources society allocates to you and thereby how much you can consume. In theory, social efficiency is self-regulated through supply and demand as dictated by individuals’ collective quest for resources. If you produce more than you can consume, you are faced with the problem of “excess” resources, which diminish in value the longer they sit inactive, which leads to re-investment of such resources. In effect, excess resources are put to work to produce additional resources. If you do not produce enough for your own consumption, you either die (in the most extreme scenario) or rely on others to help you.

As a result of this system, society stratifies into three main groups: upper class, middle class and lower class (an over-simplified, but reasonable model). The upper class is the relatively small population who have amassed (or whose ancestors have amassed) enough resources such that as individuals they themselves, do not need to “work” to produce anything as their resources produce an excess of what these individuals need (or want) to consume. The middle class, the largest portion of society in most developed nations, consists of individuals who have developed (through education or otherwise) socially desirable skills for which society is willing to pay in excess of resources required for their survival. The lower class consists of individuals whose skills are socially not as highly valued and therefore receive a social allocation of resources which allows them just enough to consume to survive (or less which requires the additional support of others or in developed society government social programs). Put simply, the upper class control the means of production, the middle class and lower class are employees of those who control the means of production in varying degrees of responsibility for varying degrees of pay.

Given this socioeconomic structure, the question then becomes what happens when the “employee” is no longer necessary for production, but these eliminated humans inevitably need to consume to survive?

At its most extreme, no worker is required for production as costs have dictated that all workers be replaced with the more cost efficient android at all levels of any given organization. Instead there are only the owners, the robots who accomplish production, and the end consumer.

In such a scenario, the owners of the organizations receive profits stemming from cost efficiencies the world has never before seen, but the resulting effect is the destruction of both the middle and lower class into an underclass which is no more capable of survival on its own than your pet gerbil. Given most modern developed societies are driven by the consumerism of the middle class, without any resources naturally flowing into the middle or lower class, consumerism is functionally destroyed along with capitalism itself.

The example given above is extreme for the purposes of clarity. I recognize that certain industries are more insulated from technological advancement than others, and economics are such that a socially critical mass would be necessarily reached before the displacement of every employee. I would, however, caution the skeptic with the notion that the extreme example is a real economic possibility.

“A report from Oxford University in 2013, for instance, found that about 50% of jobs could be taken over within the next 10 to 20 years. A McKinsey report released in 2015 backed up that prediction, suggesting that today’s technology could feasibly replace 45% of jobs right now.” http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-basic-income-harvard-speech-2017-5

5) The Death of the “Professional”

Even more concerning, the unskilled worker is far from the only one at risk. In fact, for perhaps the first time in history, professional jobs, the supposed “pinnacle” of the American dream are in danger of being automated out of existence.

By way of anecdotal evidence, by profession I am an attorney. As professions go, the legal profession is notoriously slow to adapt to changing technology. It is by all accounts considered a late adopter. Following graduation from law school, I was hired as a finance/corporate associate at a multinational law firm in New York City. As the profession is organized, an associate position at such a firm is considered the most difficult to attain in the profession. It is a highly coveted role warranting a salary north of 3x the national average and is considered to require an exceptional amount of skill and knowledge. It is by all accounts the proverbial “top of the profession”. As an associate I estimate that 50% of my job could be automated with a properly designed program tomorrow resulting in greatly reduced cost to both the client and the firm. Within five years and assuming moderate growth in the capabilities of artificial intelligence, that number could be more like 80%. For a junior or mid-level associate maybe even 100% resulting in complete displacement.

I am not visionary in making this estimation. Already numerous articles have been published in legal journals discussing the future role of artificial intelligence in the legal profession and the manner in which it is already being adopted by clients to provide for lower legal fees. For more on this topic please see any of the following articles:

https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/sites/americanlawyer/2017/10/31/artificial-intelligence-beats-big-law-partners-in-legal-matchup/?slreturn=20171118112047

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/rise-of-the-robolawyers/517794/

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/how_artificial_intelligence_is_transforming_the_legal_profession

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/technology/lawyers-artificial-intelligence.html

http://www.chambers-associate.com/practice-areas/technology-and-telecoms/artificial-intelligence-and-lawyers

This revolution is not limited to the legal profession either. For many generations, the role of medical doctor has been held in the highest esteem among professionals. Yet, even the M.D. as the most “professional” of the professional degrees is not safe from automation. It is estimated that in the next few years you will likely have your first interaction with a medical artificial intelligence system. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-19/ai-wont-replace-doctors-soon-but-it-can-help-diagnosis/8960530 While artificial intelligence may not replace your doctor yet, reliably assessing your health without a human doctor is certainly a goal. The primary benefit of doing so, as you might have guessed, is the inexpensiveness and accessibility of such systems. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-19/ai-wont-replace-doctors-soon-but-it-can-help-diagnosis/8960530

While the ultimate role artificial intelligence will play in the legal and medical professions remains to be seen, what is clear is that for perhaps the first time in history, technology has the potential to replace human functions in professional fields (middle, even upper class workers) and in the process to reshape the very nature of those professions.

For the first time in history, the middle class, even the roles of the so-called “upper” middle class, are at risk of obsolescence.

6) The Death of the American Dream

Although society’s interpretation of the American Dream has changed with time and been the subject of numerous literary classics, the broad sense of upward social mobility America has enjoyed has been systematically spread as the “American Dream” since the 1800s.

“For many in both the working class and the middle class, upward mobility has served as the heart and soul of the American Dream, the prospect of ‘betterment’ and to ‘improve one’s lot’ for oneself and one’s children much of what this country is all about. ‘Work hard, save a little, send the kids to college so they can do better than you did, and retire happily to a warmer climate’ has been the script we have all been handed.” Lawrence R. Samuel (2012), The American Dream: A Cultural History.

In recent history, most Americans regard education as the fundamental path to achieving the American Dream. Higher education in particular is considered the touchstone for achievement. Americans View Higher Education as Key to American Dream Public Agenda — May 2000. This has resulted in unrelenting demand, which in turn has led to a run-up in college tuition that, fueled by student loan borrowing, has already saddled graduates with a staggering amount of debt sufficient to derail many from a hope of a financially stable tomorrow.

However, an open question remains as to what happens when that paradigm no longer holds true; when the institutional pipeline of education no longer flushes a student out into a high paying job. In an automated world you simply do not need that many people to run the same companies. In a fully automated world, you do not need anyone.

7) The Death of the Middle Class

Interestingly (and perhaps dangerously Marxist), capitalism and the notion of the American Dream which nurtures technological growth and progress better than any other social structure ever conceived is at risk of producing an offspring which threatens to destroy the capitalist system in its entirety. Ominously, Karl Marx’s prediction that capitalism ultimately implodes upon itself (albeit at the hands of a technology which was surely never contemplated) surfaces as a very real threat to our modern way of life.

There is always class conflict occurring in a stratified society, as classes jostle for resources. In the recent history of America, the upper class has been winning in terms of resource allocation. The disparity in wealth is immense. However, the middle class has remained large because the upper class needs well-educated middle class workers to do the intellectual tasks with which they do not want to be bothered. The demand for these skills has been fairly significant such that the collective wage demanded for these skills has provided the middle class with the resources to afford more than their needs; which in turn has continued to fund our consumption economy at a reasonable growth rate (albeit lower than past decades and albeit funded in large part by debt).

In short, the middle class exists because the upper class requires their existence. If you want to buy another company, somebody needs to do the paperwork and that person is going to expect to be paid a market rate to do that paperwork. (In America, since post-industrial society, the lower class worker has been outsourced to a less developed nation or displaced through technology already, leading to an inferior wage which has to be set by the Federal Government at or near the poverty line.)

Assuming artificial intelligence provides the means for replacing the middle class worker (even if not all, but most middle class workers), then it has the potential to annihilate the middle class.

8) The Inevitability of Evolution

Despite the lamentations of even the most concerned technological leaders, not one of them can deny that their own business models have come to rely fundamentally on the very technology that they fear threatens to destroy humanity. To their credit, they recognize that they have in fact, no ability to stop the inevitability of the technology they fear they cannot control (and in some cases do not even fully understand).

As J.P. Morgan once famously said, “a [person] has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.”

As much as these men and women would like to convince you they strive for the greater good, they are, as we all are, limited by their biology. Put simply their companies face an extinction event every day, which in an effort for self-preservation drives them toward a future were the proverbial “little guy” potentially has no future and where capitalism itself may have no future. After all, if they do not retain their position on the cutting edge, you can be sure that if it is financially incentivized, someone else will. You can further be sure, that these select few pioneers, will willingly hand over your economic freedom for the sake of retaining (or gaining) power and influence. They have no ability to simply stop what they are doing (nor would they probably want to if given the option).

“Although Zuckerberg and Musk will likely continue trading barbs over their view on AI, the one thing they can both agree on is that the technology has become fundamental to their respective businesses.” http://fortune.com/2017/07/26/mark-zuckerberg-argues-against-elon-musks-view-of-artificial-intelligence-again/

9) The Mark’ist solution to the problem

Now that an atmosphere of doom and gloom has been cast over the future, one might be thinking that surely this author is far too pessimistic and that some simple solution must exist to this predicament.

In truth, a simple solution has already been proffered by one of our millennial thought leaders, Mark Zuckerberg (among others). His suggestion conspicuously smacking of Marxism or socialism is a wealth distribution system, known as universal basic income.

In his Harvard commencement speech on May 25, 2017, Zuckerberg stated “We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.” http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-basic-income-harvard-speech-2017-5

In effect, a universal basic income is a standard salary for just being alive; or, in a word, socialism.

In truth, Zuckerberg and others like him are preparing for a world in which you, the typical worker, is obsolete. Obsolete because of technology that will keep them wealthy and powerful because they will have helped create, optimize and sell it to you. You will be provided with the life saving medicine…by the same doctors who are poisoning the water supply with their pharmaceutical factory.

Now despite the dramatics, in truth, a universal basic income is not really all that bad of an idea in theory. It is also, however, not really that practical of an idea nor that novel of an idea.

A universal basic income guarantees that everyone receives enough money to survive; that is, shelter, food, clothing, etc. In theory, providing this cushion allows an otherwise unproductive person to survive. It also provides no disincentive to work, because there is (presumably at least) no claw-back of this income if an individual begins working. Any effort to work gives additional income (reduced by presumably some taxable rate) above one’s basic needs which have already been provided for by the government. Providing such a cushion, frees an individual from the inherently capitalist notion of survival. Freed from having to provide for one’s own basic needs, an individual can instead seek motivation from non-pecuniary factors like, self-fulfillment, social recognition, and the search for personal enlightenment. In short, removing the survival component of life, pushes one further up Maslow’s hierarchy, but there are plenty of levels left in the hierarchy to keep people motivated to try new things and spur innovation. Superficially, it sounds pretty good, almost utopian.

The issue of course becomes determining the optimal universal basic income to allocate. Some schools of thought suggest an amount at or near the poverty line in order to encourage productivity for the sake of achieving a better financial life. Others suggest a higher range such that the middle class lifestyle is effectively preserved. Both sides have an interesting perspective, although I suspect economically, only one model has any potential to exist.

Beginning first with a universal basic income which provides for a “middle class” lifestyle, proponents believe that the best recipe for incubating entrepreneurs and other economic risk takers is one which provides a combination of time, resources, and motivation to invest one’s skills in a pursuit which will be of both personal benefit and social benefit (it is, after all, for this reason that most of society’s ultra-successful entrepreneurs trace their roots to the middle class). Theoretically, this makes a lot of sense. However, pragmatically, there are a number of difficulties that arise from such an allocation.

From a purely logistical standpoint, dividing all of the money in society into an equal allocation only provides enough income for a lower middle class life. If the total world’s wealth is estimated at $263 trillion US dollars, dividing it by the world’s population yields around $35,000 per person. http://quarksandcoffee.com/index.php/2015/10/10/what-if-we-divided-up-everything-evenly-among-everyone-what-is-our-fair-share/ Just U.S. wealth amounts to approximately $26,804 per U.S. person or $37,321 per U.S. person if limited only to individuals over the age of 19. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-per-capita-money-supply-in-the-us-1146302 As of 2017 U.S. Federal Poverty Guidelines is at $12,060 in the 48 States & D.C. and roughly half of the U.S. population falls in the middle-income brackets, with 2010 earnings ranging from $35,294 to $105,881. https://www.thebalance.com/federal-poverty-level-definition-guidelines-chart-3305843 As of 2016 the median household income was $59,039. http://time.com/money/4991215/upper-middle-class-characteristics/ So assuming you can access the entirety of the nation’s wealth, distributing it evenly would provide for a situation in which everyone would live above the poverty line, but at a lower middle class level, well below the current median household income.

Now the argument above makes a number of assumptions, mainly it ignores geographic distribution of wealth and assumes the U.S. is one homogeneous economy (which it is not). Second, it assumes you can divide all of U.S. wealth, which you probably cannot because of the various needs of government, some likely permitted concentration of wealth in economic risk takers, and the illiquidity of some wealth, among other considerations. So likely, the maximum allocated income would have to be less than what is suggested above. It also fails to account for increased taxable revenue resulting from corporate growth from enhanced cost efficiencies and outsized profits as well as the nature of government borrowing in funding such programs (this was done for the sake of simplicity). As a purely theoretically matter however, the point remains that as approximations go for the maximum amount of money that can be distributed by the government, all of the monetary supply in the U.S. is a decent approximation for the upward bound.

Proponents of a universal basic income will be quick to point out that a universal basic income need only be distributed to the impoverished and as such is a financially sound system. They might suggest that 1% of GDP would be sufficient to lift everyone out of poverty. However, such a statement fails to consider the dynamic components of the marketplace. Mainly, what happens when the population consists of more impoverished individuals than those gainfully employed? What happens to the costs of goods in a dynamic marketplace when a base income is set? At what point do you earn enough to no longer be entitled to a universal basic income? As promising as a universal basic income may be for small pockets of population, pragmatically, when applied to society in the aggregate it has all the hallmarks of a socialist system poised to fail on its own terms.

Assuming, however, that somehow everyone could receive a sum of say $100,000 as universal basic income, I suspect that overtime market forces would result in the devaluation of this amount of income anyway. Purchasing power exists only by comparison. A $100,000 salary is significant because the median salary in America (again ignoring geographical distribution) is $59,039. http://time.com/money/4991215/upper-middle-class-characteristics/ In a dynamic market, I would expect that the demand for various goods, responding to a universal salary, would adjust in kind such that the universal basic income value (regardless of the number) eventually provides only average (more likely below average) purchasing power, absent some governmental price fixing on certain goods (or other regulatory or market manipulation on the part of the government). Put simply, a universal standard income is not a set it and forget it system. It will necessarily be a dynamic price point that the government would need to continually monitor as it tends naturally to diminish with time toward the poverty line.

Taking now the second school of thought on universal basic income, proponents suggest that scarcity of resources is the best motivation for innovation (necessity being the mother of invention) and as such, a universal basic income should be set fairly close to the poverty line (which I will admit alleviates much of the concerns of the previous paragraphs). Simply put, everyone’s basic needs should be provided for, but not so lavish a life that individuals lack the desire to build wealth and/or strive for economic improvement.

While logistically more sustainable, I fail to see how this is any different from a welfare program. It is perhaps a better welfare program, as it does not disincentive working perhaps, but it is ultimately a situation in which the government funds those stricken by poverty. When coupled with our discussion of worker displacement at the hands of technology, such a system, at the very least, sounds dystopian.

If you are a capitalist at heart, the very premise of this conversation likely made your skin crawl as we are discussing the government (or some other state-entity) effectively determining what the American lifestyle is going to be for a vast majority of the population. The simple act of a government deciding how you are going to live strongly contrasts traditional American values. We are after all the land of opportunity.

Now admittedly, a universal basic income does not seek to prevent one from seeking out opportunity (in fact one of the main considerations is keeping society productive), I am just not confident it does anything a traditional welfare system does not, other than perhaps being a better welfare system. I think it is more likely that such a system operates with the true intention of keeping the poor satisfied so populism does not result in too much discord for the rich. A socialist system, placed on the bottom rung of a capitalist environment will more than likely serve to further stratify society. Market forces are still going to govern in the aggregate. As Jean Paul Getty once said…

“If all the money and property in the world were divided up equally at, say, three o’clock in the afternoon, by 3:30 there would be notable differences in the financial condition of the recipients. Within that first thirty minutes, some adults would have lost their share, some would have gambled theirs away, and some would have been swindled out of their portion … After ninety days the difference would be staggering. And I’m willing to wager that, within a year or two at the most, the distribution of wealth would conform to patterns almost identical with those that had previously prevailed.” Jean Paul Getty, oil magnate (1892–1976), As I See It (1976).

In short, a universal basic income does not really solve anything in my opinion. It just cushions those who have been forced into obsolesce. Generally speaking, it is probably better to train everyone to be a functional member of society, since controlling one’s own economic and political fate in a capitalist system is inherently superior to giving up one’s self-reliance.

10) The Dangers of a Universal Standard Income and the Preservation of the Free Market

While marketed as a “solution” to the increasing disparity in wealth, in reality a universal standard income is at worst, a dangerous step toward the path of a state-run society, a la the literary classics, 1984 or Brave New World, and at best, an economic model in which a large portion of the population is effectively forced into a welfare state. In either case, it has the effect of stunting progress and destroying the American dream, the notion that because of your hard-work, your children’s generation will have a better life than you experienced. It also has the potential to completely alter current social values.

Psychologically, a universal standard income creates a dependence on the government or state-sponsored entity for survival, the same way your beloved pet relies on you for its dinner. In so doing, it diverts society’s values from individual achievement and refocuses on the collective by removing the number one human incentive for doing anything, mainly the ability to survive and thrive. You could expect to hear politicians speak about policies that are beneficial “in the aggregate”, but which are sure to come at the expense of individual personal goals. In American culture, the specter of such a system feels inherently anti-American. It feels that way because it is. At its most extreme, it is more than anti-American, it is anti-capitalist.

Beginning first with the most extreme scenario, a universal standard income has the potential to usher in an age of socialism, where the state controls all means of production and distributes to its citizens as desired. In an American society this seems a bit “off the rails”, but in other countries with a history of communist roots and centralized political power this is a very real possibility. Money is power and it does not take a great deal of intellectual capital to conclude, that a society that has effectively eliminated the human from its economy, can eliminate all but an elite few from its politics. This is the Orwellian society, where without an economic purpose, the human wanders aimlessly through life searching for meaning. Devoid of any social utility, the human is a standardized unit of existence fed by the will of the political elite and left only to be distracted by transient pleasures under the control of a ubiquitous government. This admittedly sounds crazy, but in truth is a very real, very dangerous long-term possibility.

Assuming a scenario, however, that preserves the free market economy; one would expect class stratification to distort society in an overt manner. Generally speaking, class stratification would remain as it does now with an upper, middle and lower class. However, the proportion of people in each class as well as the proportionate wealth concentrated in each class would be hopelessly distorted.

As an initial matter, as previously discussed, replacing the human worker with a machine worker is likely to lead to cost efficiencies that lead to greater profitability. As such, one would expect those in a position of ownership to achieve far greater wealth.

The middle class would be fundamentally altered. As people in the middle class find themselves either elevated into the upper class (if they invested the means they amassed in an advantageous way and became owners themselves) or cast into the lower class (if their skills were replaced by technology and is no longer in demand). Workers with the technical proficiency needed to run artificial intelligence systems would likely find employment thereby maintaining a middle class. Initially, the number of workers needed to run artificial intelligence systems could be expected to be large, but overtime their number should also decrease as they are able to replace themselves with advanced technologies (although one might expect research and development to sustain human employment). Additionally, professions in which a human element retains its cost efficiency and/or desirability could also be expected to survive (the humanities for instance, where for example we can already take a picture of a landscape for a fraction of the cost, but will still pay a large sum for a painting of the same landscape, because of some inherent beauty or conveyance of human emotion).

The majority of society would be tossed into a bloated lower class, which without the skills necessary to compete in a world where technology has outpaced their capacity; individuals are forced into a life of government sustenance. Because most of the population would be forced into this lower class, one could expect class conflict in the form of populism as the lower class voices its general dissatisfaction with its social situation. One would further suspect in such an environment that even a constitutional republic becomes susceptible to control by a technologically elite oligarchy, albeit under the guise of democracy.

In short, society splits into a capitalistic system enjoyed by those in control of the means of production and those few necessary to keep the machine running, while the majority of the population lives in socialism, retaining voting rights perhaps, but with very little political capital. Inevitably, the lower class has dictated cultural and political norms from those few in the upper and perpetually shrinking middle class (such norms to be either widely accepted by those in the lower class, or rejected thereby causing social instability).

11) Familiar, but different

Now, the particularly cynical reader might think that the scenario in the free market model of the preceding section does not seem all that different from the society of modern America. That is because at heart it is not. The social system is retained, but, as noted above, the allocation of resources has been hopelessly distorted. Social mobility goes from stepping stones through education, to quantum leaps requiring the cultivation of desirable technical skills, desirable artistic ability or well-placed economic risk. Essentially, education is undertaken without the certainty of future employment or improvement in quality of life unless it is taken in a marketable field of technology or in the humanities. You can no longer just go to college and expect a job upon graduation; you need to go with the goal of graduating with a marketable skill or you need to take economic risks. Widespread unemployment seems likely.

Such a scenario may seem familiar, because this technological revolution described is already underfoot. The learned-economic reader will note that in fact technological revolution is a hallmark of capitalism. As mentioned earlier, technology has long been created with the intent of “eliminating” the human from tasks, a natural byproduct of technology has always been wealth disparity, class stratification, worker displacement, distorted politics and increasing necessity (and demand for) education to sustain an economic existence.

The United States began its life as a resource economy and grew into an agrarian economy as its population grew, before technology revolutionized society in the Industrial Revolution. Gradual improvements in technology over time since then led the United States to grow into the consumption economy it is today.

In 1820 approximately 72 percent of the American workforce was engaged in a “farm occupation”. By 1916 only 30.2 percent of the population was engaged in a “farm occupation”. http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/20/us/farm-population-lowest-since-1850-s.html

As the most optimistic among us might be quick to point out, historically technology has replaced lower wage undesirable jobs with higher paying desirable jobs. The industrial revolution took the United States from a small agrarian economy to one of the largest industrial economies in the world. Innovation spurs growth. People are resilient; they generally adapt to change when a social force compels them; and society, generally speaking, continues to improve.

So if we stand at the cusp of a second “industrial” revolution; one where industry is automated, the questions remains: Are we ready?

Are we prepared for a world where automated efficiency makes the number of humans required to run a business only a fraction of middle class workers, such that the middle class shrinks rather than grows? Are we prepared for a world where the American worker has to compete against automation for middle class jobs or even upper middle class jobs?

What happens when automated efficiency hits the tipping point where even the traditionally educated middle class worker has been effectively eliminated from economic society? What happens when your Roomba has more social utility than you do?

12) The Continuum of Social Change

This article has spent a great deal of time developing extreme positions for the sake of clarity, but it is worth mentioning that instinctively we all recognize that life is an exercise in moderation. Social change does not occur overnight, rather it builds for a great deal of time (years, decades even), until it reaches a point of no return, a point at which society is forced to adapt.

I suspect we are still a distance from the tipping point as it relates to artificial intelligence. There is still a significant amount of proof of concept that needs to occur. I think most of us can agree, however, that a tsunami of technological change is coming. The alarm bells may not be ringing just yet, but the early warning signs are there.

I will also admit, that at least initially, artificial intelligence will solve far more problems than it causes. A computer that can process your entire genetic code for early detection of disease is a marvel of modern science that is to be appreciated. As technology has historically made life easier, extended life, and created new industries and professions, I have no reason to believe artificial intelligence will do otherwise.

What I am suggesting however, is that we (our social and educational institutions) are not prepared for the potential negative repercussions of this second industrial revolution. At some point, too much of a good thing, is going to be a very bad thing for large portions of the professional American population. I would further suggest that the social implications of changing technology are already upon us.

a. Energy

An ancillary, but worthwhile, point to mention is the fact that our current global infrastructure is probably not prepared for the energy demands of an economy based on artificial intelligence. The cryptocurrency of the moment, Bitcoin, has a network which is estimated to consume as much energy as the entire country of Denmark. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/bitcoins-insane-energy-consumption-explained/ What would happen if cryptocurrency was the primary monetary base?

I will not belabor the point, because this is not designed to be a discussion of cryptocurrency or energy consumption generally, but it is worth noting that a society based on new technology has different energy demands than our current society. The energy demands of the industrial revolution were far different than those of agrarian America. In fact, we are still dealing with the cumulative effects of the industrial revolution on the environment today in the form of global warming. It would probably be best for society to begin preparing for growing global energy demands now (in the form of renewable energy as to not obliterate our environment) before corporations begin scaling up energy demands and plants start increasing capacity.

b. Displacement of the Worker

A vast portion of this article has been focused on the potential of artificial intelligence to displace the worker from current roles, including current professional occupations. It was also noted that this death knell, is actually the natural course of innovation (perhaps the natural course of this survival of the fittest world in which we all live). Just as the industrial revolution displaced the agrarian worker and forced said worker to seek out an industrial manufacturing job, the skills of a society based on artificial intelligence are different than the skills the educational system cultivates today. The shock of this change will probably also resemble how stunning it must have been for an agrarian worker to suddenly be thrust into the belly of a fire breathing steel factory. The difficulty this time around, however, is that a different mental skill set is required, rather than a different physical skill set. The industrial revolution certainly required re-training, but it was relatively easy to train a farmer to work on an assembly line. It was probably more standardized and less exciting than farming, but an individual could still transition with relative ease and a small amount of education.

If more cerebral professional functions are replaced, however, workers will need to be trained for a different mental skill set. Fully removed from the physicality of production and partially removed from the mental aspect of production, most jobs will likely require the acquisition of different mental tools. For starters, a society where production is handled by machines requires, at minimum, a basic ability to interact with these machines and an understanding of how they operate.

Similarly, the role of the human in industry is likely to be altered from its current formulation. There are different components of every business, but for the sake of discussion, we can assume all businesses have the fundamental components of: core business operations, finance/accounting, legal, research and development, and long-term planning/growth strategy.

As discussed, we can expect that core business function, finance/accounting and legal will ultimately be largely replaced because of cost efficiencies in doing so. Therefore, the business component left for human jobs would necessarily be in the research and development arena (as well as maintenance of the machines doing the production) and long-term strategy (although those jobs are usually senior positions which will probably graduate out of research and development teams).

The skills of research and development are much different than those of operations or finance/accounting and legal. The focus of such tasks is less about memorization and the ability to complete routine tasks, and more about creative problem solving.

c. Education and Training

If the middle class is to survive and continue to drive innovation, the middle class will require a skill in the aggregate which those in control of the means of production need to maintain a competitive advantage. Because, as discussed above, this is most likely to be by possessing a skill in either maintenance or research and development, the intellectual makeup of the American worker will need to change dramatically. To properly prepare this worker, the foundational educational training of the American will need to change as well.

Students will no longer be able to shuffle along the institutional assembly line and out into a profession to provide a societal function. Students will need to be trained in both technology and the ability to problem solve in a way that allows them to adapt to change and innovate. Once society has effectively eliminated the human from production, the remaining human function (what some might call the highest human function) is to create new things.

In order to accomplish this, our education systems will need to focus less on the memorization of facts and more on teaching kids the ability to connect dots in new innovative ways, all the while being immersed in technology.

By way of example, it will probably make no difference whether or not an attorney has memorized the federal rules of civil procedure. However, it will be of extreme importance that an attorney understands that the federal rules of civil procedure follow a logic paradigm which results in different outcomes depending on the facts and surrounding circumstances. It will be of further importance that the student be able to use that knowledge to guide a litigation managing technology toward a proper judgment.

Computational thinking and algorithm design should be hallmarks of the U.S. education system. Logical thinking, algorithmic expression, problem decomposition, and debugging are the skills of the future. Computer illiteracy is not an option for the future American worker.

Nevertheless, as of October 2017 only ten of America’s fifty states have adopted K-12 computer science standards, with another ten in progress. That still leaves thirty states which have no computer science standards in K-12. Computer science courses are counted toward high school graduation credit in only thirty-three states. Only one state (Arkansas) has made K-12 computer science education mandatory (with Virginia and Rhode Island expected to follow suit soon). https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/education/what-500-million-could-mean-for-k12-computer-science-education

d. The Rumblings of Social Change

In case you missed that, despite the fact that the majority of the world’s thought leaders agree that a technological revolution is coming that may pose a risk to humanity itself, only one state has decided it should be mandatory to teach kids anything about it.

In truth, the social situation I have been describing throughout this article is already upon us. Already today, the need for an advanced education for even the most menial jobs has led to demand for higher education at a cost the majority of the nation can ill-afford. Often students graduate with a four-year degree and essentially no marketable social function. The gap in wages from the nation’s top earners to those of the middle class is already incredibly stark. As a result, such inequality has already triggered the rumblings of social populism, even socialism itself.

Instinctively people recognize that the same amount of effort is yielding less and less in economic result. Across the United States increased productivity of corporations is not being passed on to the worker, resulting in wage stagnation. A problem which is likely to get worse, not better as the technological tidal wave we have been discussing crashes down upon America’s workforce.

Yet, as of October 2017 there were 500,000 computer science job openings in the U.S., representing more than ten times the number of students who graduated with computer science degrees in the preceding year. https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/education/what-500-million-could-mean-for-k12-computer-science-education

The middle class is hallowing and wages are stagnant, but there are 500,000 vacant jobs in the technology sector. The proverbial agrarian farm workers are not finding their way to the steel factories, in part because they have only been given half of the map. In fact, it would be easier for me as a farmer to geographically move and pick up a new physical skill in a factory than it would be for me as an attorney to forsake three years of schooling and sign on for another four years of schooling to be retrained as a computer scientist. Time is more tyrannical than geography.

Our society needs to begin appropriately educating and training our children (our future workforce) now, before we reach the tipping point of the next technological revolution. The kids being educated today will probably end up in professions that have not even been invented yet. We owe it to them to provide an educational foundation that gives them a fighting chance. It is not fair for us to saddle future generations with obsolescence or to resolve them to a universal basic income because we failed to educate them. More than fairness, society cannot afford to do so if it wants to maintain its economic structure.

We need not fear a technology so powerful, we need to repel it. We need to be prepared for technology so friendly and useful we find ourselves replaced by it.

As of today, we are not prepared.