Emperor Vespasian replied “You must allow my poor hauliers to earn their bread” when faced with a proposal for a machine that would help with the transportation of columns throughout the Roman Empire.

His anti-automation stance was ill-conceived for someone so intent on squeezing every economic drop from the masses that he imposed a tax on the collection of their urine for use in industry. Opposition on grounds of vulgarity to this tax led to his now famous maxim that “money doesn’t stink”.

Perhaps though, if Vespasian had been privy to the near 2000 year record of automation on driving economic prosperity that was to follow, then he too would have concluded that automation, similarly, doesn’t stink.

His anti-automation stance was nothing new. Like his modern contemporaries, he found it easy to blame abstract forces such as globalisation, immigrants, and automation as the causes of economic woes. However, rather than blaming technology, we should instead examine the nature of automation, along with those policies, that set-out over decades, have minimised the opportunity for average workers to share in the enormous gains we’ve seen from technological innovation.

Typically, arguments against automation are founded on two flawed bases.

Firstly, there is an aura of mysticism around AI which creates a lack of distinction between autonomy and automation. It’s often assumed that the adoption of AI techniques supposes that there is autonomy in the algorithms at play, when in reality the boundaries and limits of both their current and near-future operation are tightly controlled. This has ramifications for the types of work that we might anticipate can be replaced in the foreseeable future.

Secondly, the historic data demonstrating the ability of automation to transform economies is bypassed by those preferring the narrative that it simply kills jobs. Instead, I will argue that automation has been one of the single most effective mechanisms for improving our living standards and prospects.

Finally, I will address what I believe to be the real issues surrounding automation and employment, namely, the systemic and political choices that have contributed to unequal outcomes for workers in recent decades. In doing so, I will argue that automation has the potential to continue elevate our economic chances, but only if we take steps to ensure it does so in a fair way.

TL;DR — Conclusion

As yet, the inventions of previous decades remain more impactful than AI or ML have mustered thus far[28]. This failure is far from positive — as some may like to conclude. In adopting the blunt tool of automation, we have the potential to increase our economic lot, but only if we invest the energy into developing sound policy that reduces potentially unequal outcomes. It is absolutely vital that our technical innovations start to translate into fair economic impact, as failure to do so harbours some deeply troubling prospects for our future. So, best we figure out our way forward, lest like old Vespasian we too shall be collecting tax on piss for years to come….

Thanks to Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur First ), Marc Sloan (Context Scout), and Emily Sappington (Context Scout) for reviewing this article in its various nascent states. Your thoughts and advice were much appreciated and contributed to making the article clearer.

Part 2 — https://medium.com/@oharney/automation-is-not-autonomy-think-tasks-not-jobs-part-2-4-33969b722e8a

Part 3 — https://medium.com/@oharney/humans-are-killing-robot-jobs-part-3-4-26174b0e587d

Part 4 — https://medium.com/@oharney/policy-not-programs-part-4-4-757e47dbae3e

References

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[27] How inequality is evolving and why, Will Denayer, 2018

[28] 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, Chapter 4, Ha Joon Chang, 2010