As someone who watches technology trends closely as part of my business, I have been thinking about the future impact of all the technology innovations and automation we are currently experiencing and on the cusp of achieving. Many of the headlines I read about these trends — and even some I write — predict some pretty negative consequences right along with the monumental achievements and improvements.
While improvements in machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data, and robot automation could mean huge advances in medicine, science, commerce and human understanding, it’s also undeniable that there will be consequences as well. These technological advances represent a significant challenge to capitalism. Together, they are poised to potentially create jobless growth and the paradox of an exponentially growing number of products, manufactured more and more efficiently, but with rising unemployment and underemployment, falling real wages and stagnant living standards.
In fact, it’s already begun.
The rate of technological progress and worker productivity is on the rise, butwages are stagnating, factories are eliminating jobs, and researchers estimate that anywhere between 35 and 50 percent of jobs that exist now are in danger of being lost to automation.
But what if the prognosis weren’t all doom and gloom? What if all this automation were instead to provide so much luxury that we enter a post-work era, when humans are required to do very little labor and machines provide everything we need?
This is the theory of ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’, an idea and ideology that in the (near) future, machines could provide for all our basic needs, and humans would be required to do very minimal work — perhaps as little as 10–12 hours a week — on quality control and similar oversight, to ensure luxury for everyone.
Robots, AI, machine learning, big data, etc. could basically make human labor redundant and instead of creating even further inequalities it could lead to a society where everyone lives in luxury and where machines produce everything.
(Think of the egalitarian society of The Federation portrayed in Star Trek where physical needs are met with “replicators” and other advanced technology, and you have a pretty good idea what they’re talking about.)
“There is a tendency in capitalism to automate labor, to turn things previously done by humans into automated functions,” Aaron Bastani, co-founder of Novara Media and a “luxury communist” told The Guardian. “In recognition of that, then the only utopian demand can be for the full automation of everything and common ownership of that which is automated.”
In fact, the idea of a luxury communist utopia isn’t exactly new. Sure, this version has cool robots, but historians can trace the idea back as far as the 19th century.
The trick, however, is subordinating the technology to global human needs rather than profits. But this has been the sticking point for communism since its conception. Without profits — or some other strong inherent incentive — what motivation is there to innovate, to adapt, to improve? Many historians agree that communism in Western Europe failed due to stagnation and a failure to adapt, because its constituents were not motivated to produce more than the status quo in any area.
That isn’t to say I think the idea is all bad, either. Putting modern technology to work for the people is an excellent goal, and democratizing the advantages of our advances is already happening. It is a worthy cause to bring governments and nonprofit organizations onto the same technological footing as for-profit companies could result in huge strides towards improving living conditions, decreasing crime, ending poverty and other problems.
And it’s also true that technology must be seen not just as the scythe, reaping jobs and opportunities at every turn, but also the sower of new opportunities to replace the ones that were lost.
But I’m not sure we’ll ever reach a state of “Cartier for everyone, MontBlanc for the masses and Chloe for all,” as Bastani preaches.
Where do you think we’re headed as more automation, robotics and technology come on the market? Are we in for an economic apocalypse as the robots take all our jobs, or more towards a utopian future in which the machines create a paradise for all? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
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