The answer to the AI-dominated labor market of the future can be found among the disabled

Since the company openAI launched the artificial intelligence engine GPT4 in March, the debate about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society has exploded. If AI is mostly good for humanity, or if its disadvantages and risks dominate, divide the debaters into two camps. In the corner that advocates caution and reflection, stands a number of tech gurus and AI thinkers (including Tesla's Elon Musk and Apple founder Steve Wozniak) who call for a 6-month development halt in an open letter in March (https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/).

That AI is a double-edged sword is obvious. It has already been used to develop molecules candidates to find drugs as well as suggestions for nerve gas. If AI is to bring more good than harm to humanity, the so-called alignment problem of AI must be solved.?

The alignment problem refers to the insight that

failure to align AI systems with human values could result in unintended and potentially catastrophic consequences, such as the creation of powerful and uncontrollable systems that pose a threat to human well-being.

In other words, if the AI is not controlled in a smart and rigorous way, it risks solving "its optimization problem" at the expense of human values. The classic thought experiment from the AI debate to illustrate this is the so-called?paperclip example. It assumes that an AI is set to maximize the production of paperclips. First, by increasing productivity in the factory via the elimination of unnecessary inefficiencies, which seems both desirable and innocent. However, if its purpose is not aligned with human values, it will soon engage in unintended and harmful behaviors, such as using all available resources to produce paperclips, regardless of the consequences for humans and other living beings.?

The problem with the rapidly accelerating AI adoption is that it favors companies at the expense of individuals. This is because the selection of the problems to which the majority of AI activity is directed is mainly controlled by companies. It is not strange in a market economy. Those companies that are early and innovative in understanding and experimenting with how AI can streamline their operations will increase their competitiveness at the expense of those companies that do not embrace AI. If nothing is done about this, the development power of AI will be directed towards effective business, not necessarily towards human well-being.

Some might argue that companies have always prioritized maximizing profitability and shareholder value rather than caring about workers' quality of life. That's true, but the radical difference now is that the "business-worker alignment problem" is no longer held in check by the fact that businesses depend on access to workers' time for their profitability. Historically, companies have always exchanged money (salary) for workers' time. First in the form of using the workers' muscle power during working hours, more recently towards buying their brain power (intellectual work). But it is precisely this balance of power that AI is now breaking. When a company decides to replace a radiologist, a judge or a copywriter with an AI, it is because productivity by that is increased. It is a completely logical development as a large part of many companies' cost base is made up of salaries. But it also jeopardizes the wealth development individuals have seen in the last century. Metaphorically, one can say that

the wealth improvement of the individual has been lashed to the mast of the boat that represents the companies. When the boat has been lifted on the tidal wave of productivity improvement, workers' wages have followed. However, with AI, the individual now run the risk being dumped overboard, while the companies alone sail towards the horizon.

It is this problem that we need to find a solution to as a society before we completely unleash AI development. So where can we look for inspiration for a solution?

I am a father and a legal guardian to a disabled daughter. She is today 20 years old and about to leave school to go out into life. However, her functional impairments prevent her from competing on the labor market. There are few or no tasks my daughter can perform that a company is willing to pay a salary for. Fortunately, the 150 years of welfare development have lifted our nation to a level of prosperity that we can afford LSS (The Support and Service to Certain Disabilities Act (Act 1993:387)). Through LSS, my daughter will be eligible for daily activities. My wife and I have been around and visited daily care centers to find one which fits our daughter's unique needs and abilities and believe we have found one which is focused on creating culture, including setting up musicals. When we tell people outside the LSS sphere about this, we notice how it creates confusion. They think it is too far from a "normal job" where working time is exchanged for money. The perplexity takes its starting point from the fact that it is difficult for us to wrap our head around that a job can mean something other than the worker's time being invested to produce something "useful" (for example paperclips). But that's exactly where AI development is about to take us.

More and more of us will find ourselves in a situation where there are no companies willing to pay for the work we can offer, as it is made better by AI.

In the AI-dominated labor market of the future, an increasing proportion of us risk not being able to fill our everyday lives with meaning through paid work. Instead, we need to find other daily activities that give meaning. This is where we can be inspired by how meaningful activities have been solved for disabled people with the right to LSS. In the future, I see that we all have the right to a basic state financial support that gives security like LSS (perhaps renamed to basic income). At the same time, people's need for meaning is not created by knowing that they trade their hours to generate additional profitability for a company, but instead by engaging with like-minded people in something that brings meaning and joy to society.

It is perhaps the functionally disabled eligible for LSS that best show what the future labor market looks like. The Bible verse from the Gospel of Matthew 19:30 spins in my head "Many who are last will be first, and many who are first will be last".