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The Bot Brief
POSTED 06/30/2024
Bots in the News:
Within the 345 pages of learned tomes produced in the January meeting of the American Economic Association, there were certainly some worthwhile readings and, perhaps, some potentially valid conclusions. What seems to be devoid within the academia hierarchy, however, was some attention to the largest economic force facing the world. Among typical topics of gender and race inequalities, intergenerational wealth transfer, working to change the climate in economics and global health societal consequences, there was virtually no focus on the impact of robotic and automation of the universal economy.
As Elon Musk and a growing list of AI and robotic pundits have strongly suggested, we are rapidly approaching a phase where the supplement of automation to human labor becomes a replacement of human employment. Virtually all economic theory is based upon how the dynamic forces within the economy tend to intersect at what is known as a point of equilibrium. The Fed tries to reach such a point using monetary policy to affect the equilibrium of employment with inflation, supply demand curves depict the level of price that accommodates both consumers and suppliers while the stock market vacillates between fear and greed!
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The uncharted balance that is being created between human employment and robotic labor has yet to be explored or transmitted by the strength within the economic community. At what point will the output of robotic production be unable to be purchased by unemployed humans? While that is the major economic question, the social impact associated with an idle population is immense. Just as an example, view the long-term implications that a simple one-year pandemic had on social interactions, self-reliance, education and suicide rates (suicide was the second leading cause of death for individuals aged 5-24). Truly idle hands are the devil’s workshop.
It is past time for the intellectual community to take up the topic of labor both human and robotic. While we hope these competing forces will evolve into some form of peaceful coexistence, as my mentor often noted, “Hope is NOT a strategy”. It is critical that academia provide governments with information they will need to develop policies to contend with the impending environment.