When will advancing technology make most of us unemployable? (JLI Essay, Very High Commendation)

“Photography will make painting obsolete,” said Gustave Flaubert in his “the Dictionary of received ideas”, an assembly of notes made in the 1870s (Flaubert, 2018). People at the time were trying to cope with the major inventions brought on by technology,  such as trains, telegraph and photography. The spread of photographic technology put  pressure on the reigning artistic movement of the era, realism (Duggan, 2013). People began  to see realism in painting as coming short of what photography had to offer. Some painters  attempted to mimic the skill of photography to capture fleeting moments, often with  discretely using photography as an inspiration. Critic Ernest Lacan described some practices  of painters hiding the influence they received was “like a mistress whom one cherishes but  hides” (Rosenblum, 2008). Everyone seemed to feel this pressure, even the greats such as  Courbet and Millet. Today’s innovations do not stop at conjuring realistic images from words  or driverless vehicles. Advances in technology has called patients to check on their conditions  during COVID-19 lockdown, defeated the most difficult board game, passed medical  licensing exams, and diagnosed tumors with a snapshot. Whereas in the late 19^th century it  might have not been so apparent that humanity would be displaced as significantly as today,  modern improvement in generative artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics point towards the  possibility of complete substitution of human work. Hence, the question of when advanced  technology will make most of us unemployable is better answered as the stage in which technological development will replace most current occupations, rather than an exact  chronological forecast. As to what we should do about it is better answered as a complex  milieu of economic and political changes involving universal basic income (UBI) which will  provide support for all while also rewarding creativity and productivity. 

To assess when will advancing technology make most of us unemployable, this essay  defines the concept of “when” as a stage of technological development, describing the  requisites to which current employment become obsolete. To frame this into a more specific  context, we can consider the most irreplaceable occupation and estimate the technological  requirements to make this form of human work unemployable. We are excluding purely  creative work in this consideration, as new pathways of creativity cannot be predicted, and  purely creative occupations do not constitute the majority of the workforce, and thus may be  ignored for the time being. Political, diplomatic and judicial roles, elected roles specifically  designed for humans to lead human communities also lie outside the scope of a general  labour force, and the question of replaceability with machines is not a matter of technological  capability, but of human consensus.  

The labour market is a complex picture that cannot simply be represented by the rate  of employment. Even when describing the current labour market, major factors involve  dynamic forces which include, demography, geopolitical trends, environmental impact, in  addition to technological advances. In addition to these unpredictable dynamic trends,  economic factors of growth and productivity also indirectly influence labour through these  dynamic factors along with its direct effects. Anomalous factors, such as the recent COVID 19 pandemic has been shown to negatively influence diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at  work, while independently increasing the requirement for other sectors, such as healthcare (Eikhof, 2020). However, the recent future of jobs report by the world economic forum suggests the principal macrotrends driving business transformation will be the increased  adoption of new and frontier technologies (Di Battista et al., 2023). The jobs in higher  demands were primarily centred around the technological sector, while the majority of  clerical and administrative jobs were on the decline. While some of these jobs may not be  immediately supplanted in their entirety, it represents both the higher productivity technology  allows fewer employees to achieve, as well as the decline in job openings for persons with  such skills. 

Neither does this mean that tech jobs are safe. Recent major layoffs have been  reported in tech companies such as Amazon, Dell, Tesla, Microsoft, IBM and Google (Hughes, 2024). Some of the precursors of current large language models were specifically  designed to automate the creation of blocks of programming, and current iterations of these,  such as ChatGPT or Copilot can compose codes for everything from apps to webpages. The  lowest increasing demand among tech jobs have been reported for programming, as the  transitioning to higher skill sets from simple coding to AI skills even among tech jobs have  been widely suggested in the aftermath of such layoffs (Di Battista et al., 2023; Hughes,  2024). Furthermore, A study by Kuhail involving programmers have shown current industry  incumbents forecast future AI will be able to replace simple programming (Kuhail et al.,  2024). Another study speculates it will also be able to construct custom AI models and  architecture according to the needs (Zohair, 2018). This final glimpse at future technology  represents a meta state in which AI can create AI, indicating a putative Escher-esque  recursive level of automated creation and self-improvement may be possible, fulfilling the  thesis objective of the most irreplaceable occupation held by humans and finding it  replaceable by technology. On an aside, the conclusion of the paper suggested that many in  the industry predicted the majority of automated programming to be accomplished by 2050. 

Technological advancement has always accompanied creation of new jobs and have  historically increased jobs as well as productivity. Acemoglu and Restrepo describes the  displacement effect, where capital takes over tasks previously performed by labour (Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2019). This leads to an increase in productivity, which contributes to  a demand for labour in non-automated tasks, which can reinstate labour into a broader range  of tasks and thus change the task content of production in favour of labour. While Acemoglu  and Restrepo points out that new jobs have been through all technological upheavals, the  balance between displacement and reinstatement is not ensured. In fact, the Future of Jobs  report showed a net decline in overall jobs as displacement outweighed reinstatement (Di  Battista et al., 2023). 

Ultimately, the decreasing employment levels will render most of us unemployable,  taking over simple tasks first, then complex and creative tasks as well. Brynjolfsson and  McAfee suggests the current pace of technology is advancing so fast that skills and  organizations cannot keep up (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014). They also note that the  increase in productivity is also accompanied by falling median income (Brynjolfsson &  McAfee, 2015). Even before the advent of the internet, Sherwin Rosen predicted the  emergence of an economy dominated by a small number of extremely wealthy individuals, a  so-called ‘superstar economy’ (Rosen, 1981). The lack of surmountable gradient skill level,  flattened by technological advancement, can only add to this disparity. Technological  advancement has always tackled easier, repetitive mundane tasks first, then progressing  higher up the tier of specialization. In the process the middle-class will face inevitable  collapse. 

Many have suggested UBI as a solution to this disparity. While the definition of UBI  may vary depending on its proponents, it is generally characterized as distributed of cash by  the government, regularly, individually, unconditionally, and universally (Bidadanure, 2019). Even before Andrew Yang brought the issue into the 2020 United States presidential  platform, UBI has been seen as one of the solutions to the ever polarizing wealth gap, that  can only be exacerbated by advancing technology (White, 2019). By providing cash  regardless of income, married status, wealth or job seeking activity, UBI has been considered  as a “floor to stand on” rather than a “safety net”. Since its introduction and popularization,  UBI has attracted natural critics who believe it will promote a significant portion of the  workforce to become ‘free riders’, exploiting the hard work of others for their non-productive  pursuits. However, defenders are quick to point out that this is an outlier and cannot be the dominant force that will relegate the majority of labour into slackers. Defenders of UBI point  to project communities which rely on baseline incomes which support the community, such  as the Alaska Permanent Fund, which provides Alaskans with 1,000 to 2,000 dollars per  person, including children. Recent reports show no fall in employment, but a rise in part time  work (Jones & Marinescu, 2022). Replacing petrol income in Alaska with the increased  profitability from technological sectors, and we may be looking at a future sustainable plan. 

While the discussion on whether UBI is a solution, is practical or even feasible is a  tangent beyond the scope of this essay, it is sufficient to reconsider the question of what  ‘employment’ signifies. Employment is a job, as both something one contributes to society,  and something one receives payment for to sustain one’s survival. Anthropologist David  Graeber writes of ‘bullshit jobs’ as “Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in  particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not  really need to be performed” (Graeber, 2013). These jobs are the ones advancing technology  aims to eliminate first. Extending on this article, Graeber expands this to his book Bullshit  jobs, where in the last chapter he discusses UBI. “What Basic Income ultimately proposes is  to detach livelihood from work” (Graeber, 2018). Therefore, if advancing technology  displaces most work necessary to produce for society, relegating the rest of human activity to  only creative purposes, while also increasing production enough to sustain society, then UBI  can allow, if not ensure, that one has the necessary means to sustain oneself to further  contribute with that which cannot be displaced by technology, namely creativity. 

When photography ‘made obsolete’ realism in painting, an unexpected turn of events  occurred. As artists were ‘freed’ from the need to slavishly represent reality, the ability to  capture the moment led to the rise of impressionism (Jones, 2023). While the artistic  expression of photography evolved, it also gave birth to the modern cinema, music videos,  television and livestream. The concept of creating new jobs has always been a reality, but 

new jobs created has always drifted away from providing food to mouth. And while UBI may  seem more like a socialist pipe dream initial evidence are promising. Advancing technology  may provide us the means to unshackle the dual concept of employment as a means to put  bread on the table and employment as a contribution to society by pursuing one’s own  purpose and creativity.

References

Acemoglu, D., & Restrepo, P. (2019). Automation and new tasks: How technology displaces  and reinstates labor. Journal of economic perspectives, 33(2), 3-30.  

Bidadanure, J. U. (2019). The political theory of universal basic income. Annual Review of  Political Science, 22, 481-501.  

Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and  prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. WW Norton & Company.  Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2015). Will humans go the way of horses. Foreign Aff., 94,  8.  

Di Battista, A., Grayling, S., Hasselaar, E., Leopold, T., Li, R., Rayner, M., & Zahidi, S.  (2023). Future of jobs report 2023. World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland.  https://www. weforum. org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023,  

Duggan, B. (2013). How Photography Changed Painting (and Vice Versa). Big Think.  Retrieved Februrary 7, 2013, from https://bigthink.com/articles/how-photography changed-painting-and-vice-versa/ 

Eikhof, D. R. (2020). COVID-19, inclusion and workforce diversity in the cultural economy:  what now, what next? Cultural Trends, 29(3), 234-250.  

Flaubert, G. (2018). Dictionary of received ideas. Alma Books.  

Graeber, D. (2013). On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs: A work rant. Strike Magazine, 3(1),  5.  

Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit jobs. E mploi, 131.  

Hughes, N. C. (2024). Tech Layoffs Predictions 2024: When Will the Job Cuts End?  Techopedia. Retrieved Jun 27,2024, from https://www.techopedia.com/tech-layoffs predictions

Jones, C. P. (2023). Debunking the myth of how early photography influenced painting.  Medium. https://christopherpjones.medium.com/the-misunderstood-influence-of early-photography-on-painting-9d62a2944a7f 

Jones, D., & Marinescu, I. (2022). The labor market impacts of universal and permanent cash  transfers: Evidence from the Alaska Permanent Fund. American Economic Journal:  Economic Policy, 14(2), 315-340.  

Kuhail, M. A., Mathew, S. S., Khalil, A., Berengueres, J., & Shah, S. J. H. (2024). “Will I be  replaced?” Assessing ChatGPT's effect on software development and programmer  perceptions of AI tools. Science of Computer Programming, 235, 103111.  

Rosen, S. (1981). The economics of superstars. The American economic review, 71(5), 845- 858.  

Rosenblum, N. (2008). World History of Photography. Abbeville Press.  White, A. (2019). A universal basic income in the superstar (digital) economy. Ethics and  Social Welfare, 13(1), 64-78.  

Zohair, L. M. A. (2018). The Future of Software Engineering by 2050s: Will AI Replace  Software Engineers? International Journal of Information Technology, 2(3), 1-13.