Is Automation a trap?
The key distinction to make with technology is whether it assists workers with their jobs, making them more productive, or completely replace workers, eliminating their jobs. While pattern recognition helps the dermatologist diagnose skin cancer, it doesn’t replace the dermatologist. However, speech recognition used at the drive-through at McDonald's and Taco Bell is designed to eliminate jobs. The same is true for self-driving trucks.
Before the First Industrial Revolution, workers typically resisted any technology that would put them out of work. They usually won because the royals and landowners who held political power feared massive rebellion. Following worker riots against automatic looms in Europe, Germany prohibited the machines for 40 years. But during the First Industrial Revolution, which began around 1769, Britain wanted to compete economically with other countries, and British cities were competing against each other. So when the silk and cotton textile industry built the first factories and automated the spinning and weaving processes, the government protected them. Parliament passed an act that made the destruction of machines a crime punishable by death. The Luddites rioted, and more than 30 were hanged.
Factory jobs were simplified so children could be the robots of the day. In the 1830s over half of the workers in textile factories were children. The lives of the displaced artisans suffered. They lost income, died earlier, and the height of their children would be lower, indicating malnutrition. Ultimately the new factory productivity brought Britain great wealth. But it took over 50 years for the average person to see the benefits come to them. The Second Industrial Revolution that took place in America beginning in the 1870s was a very different experience. Electricity, automobiles, and mass production introduced new technology into the workplace. Most workers saw this technology as helping them, not replacing them. Wages and benefits rose for the middle class, and income inequality fell. Since 1980, wages for the middle class have fallen behind. Unskilled factory jobs that require only a high school diploma have either been sent abroad or automated. This trend will continue!! Jobs that require the least education and skills are the most likely to be automated by AI and robots.
To avoid the trap, policymakers shall take advantage of the fact that this time around it is possible to see how things might play out, and manage the transition accordingly.It means making greater use of wage insurance, to compensate workers who have to move to jobs with a lower salary, boost the early-childhood education system, extending the income tax-credit etc.