The Future of Work and the Founders of Google

The other night I listened to a joint appearance of Sergey Brin and Larry Page when they sat down with Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla. It was a very interesting presentation. To me, one of the most noteworthy aspects of this event was seeing how well the two founders get along today, 15 years after they founded Google. While much of the presentation was exciting and enlightening, I felt the most frightening part of the discussion came when they spoke about the future of work. The question was posed to the Google founding duo – What happens when more and more jobs are done solely by computers?

This is a question I have been grappling with and writing about for years. There can be no question that we are entering into a new period for mankind – a new industrial revolution, as Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee wrote in The Second Machine Age. In the earlier Industrial revolution machines replaced our muscles. Now machines are replacing our brains. There can be no doubt that Google has definitively contributed to those changes. Brinn and Page’s response to the question above was thought provoking. Sergey suggested that people in the future will work only part time. He believes that people need work and should keep on working, however, there will only be work to employ people part time. He also contends that we can sustain the needs of all the people of the earth solely with part time work. The only problem with this view is that if you follow this line of thought to its natural conclusion, we will certainly need a new type of economic system. While it would be great for most people to work only part time, most people cannot pay their bills based on part time pay. Today, many people need to hold down multiple jobs to pay their bills. So what are the founders of Google proposing? Were they proposing the world move to a Communist system- where an ideology of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” be implemented?

I would be surprised if that was the view the Google founders want to see in action. However, I am not sure I see another solution to the potential problem of the lack of work that the continued increase in the abilities of computers will no doubt bring about.

I have no solutions of my own, but it is time we invest some effort thinking about the problems that were raised from this broader discussion – instead of wasting our time arguing about narrow partisan political concerns.

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