New Technologies are Threats but also an Opportunity:
Robotics, artificial or digital intelligence (we don't say computer anymore, it seems) are regularly presented as the next threat. All these devices soon as smart as us, if not more, will they not replace us and plunge us into unemployment. We can still darken the picture by evoking the civil wars that will erupt everywhere when the masses of desperate unemployed will have no other choice than violence to express their suffering.
Technologies, because they disrupt our lives, destabilize:
This is nothing new. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, new technologies have been accompanied by similar predictions. Because technologies disrupt our lives, they destabilize. Because they change the way we work, they cause concern. Because the redistribution of wealth accompanies them, they provoke exacerbated, sometimes violent, reactions. What is striking today is how easy it is to forget history.
No more reputedly friendly little merchant:
The once-labor-intensive car production lines now employ a limited number of workers, many of whom only supervise robots. Retail is being replaced by hypermarkets or distance selling sites, where robots prepare orders. No more reputedly friendly little merchant, hello the anonymity of the shelves or the computer screen. We will soon have computerized medical diagnosis and remote surgeries.
It is easy to conclude that many professions are set to disappear. It’s going a bit fast. Most will not disappear, but they will be profoundly transformed. For example, buildings may be made of modules that are prefabricated and then assembled. Tomorrow's masons will work either to do the modules or to assemble them on-site, controlling the robots that will do the work.
Two anxiety-provoking questions arise. First, will this massively create unemployment? Traditional masons will see their activity sharply decrease. This is the usual effect of technological progress. Shoemakers are all but gone, but we still wear shoes, now factory-produced, often overseas, and soon all made by robots.
It is labor that limits production capacity:
This does not mean, however, a lasting increase in unemployment. The reason is a very general observation. The productive capacity of a country, or even the world, is limited by one factor: the workforce. Give me a million people, and I will equip them with the means of production - buildings, machines, infrastructure, and training. Give me another million, and I'll do it again. It is the means of production that adapt to the quantity of labor, and not the other way around.
The labor market never works perfectly:
It could be objected that not all the workforce is employed. This is true, but for two reasons. First, the job market never works perfectly. The more dysfunctional it is, the more people are unemployed. This explains Switzerland (unemployment rate of 4.5%) and France (10.4%). Then, some people do not have the required qualifications, like traditional masons. In time, we stop training them. In the meantime, they have to relocate. Some will succeed, perhaps by having to accept a drop in their income. Others will not, and we will have a temporary increase in unemployment.
The inequalities thus created:
The second question concerns the inequalities that will be created. The industrial revolution of the 19th century replaced artisans with increasingly automated factories. Those who benefited were the highly skilled - business leaders and professionals - and the untrained people much needed in the production lines. Sure, they were poorly paid, and the working conditions were harsh, but it was better than in the agriculture they came from.
Those who lost are the middle classes, the artisans whose trades were disappearing. In the 20th century, the wheel turned. Activities have become more complex and less routine; administrative tasks have developed. The low-skilled, the blue-collar, lost, and the white-collar won.
What will the 21st century be made of?
What will the 21st century be made of? Many tasks - far from all menials - will be taken over by computers, which already do all the repetitive work and become able to learn and adjust, like driving a car. The wheel will turn to the detriment of those with obsolete skills, such as multilingual secretaries or white-collar workers in both public and private administration. Of course, anyone who can produce countless computer applications will be among the winners. Those who are creative and those who have to react to emotions (salespeople or security guards, for example) and unexpected events (surgeons or police officers). Waiters who navigate crowded tables and smile shouldn't suffer too much from robot competition.
An opportunity and a threat:
Above all, we must not lose sight of the fact that technological progress is both an opportunity and a threat—a threat for some and an opportunity for all. Over the past 150 years, the standard of living has increased tenfold in Switzerland. It had quadrupled over the previous two millennia. It is up to the winners to compensate the losers.
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