Why
A: Death spiral
AI was pitched by the AI companies as a way for companies to increase productivity and reduce costs (jobs).?
People are beginning to feel the disruption of AI. Some workers are fearful that AI will automate their work, and they will lose their job. Students meanwhile are graduating into an uncertain world.
We can see this already starting in the tech industry (eg coding), but also moving to knowledge work (eg lawyers), and with robotics it is plausible that it will move to manual work too (eg robot cleaners / builders).
And, if you think about it, saving money and cutting jobs leads to a pretty grim death spiral.
- companies automate and cut jobs
- fewer jobs, so consumers spend less?
- less spending, so companies cut more
- repeat until no-one can afford to buy anything - including AI
B: Golden age
But does it have to be this way? Can we reframe how this increase in productivity and possibility is applied?
So rather than doing the same amount of stuff with fewer people, companies choose to do more stuff with the same amount of people.
This isn't about using productivity to produce more of the same stuff (altho that will happen). It is about using our new found intelligence to create new types of stuff.
New possibilities, new realms of research, new avenues of creativity, and new types of productivity.
In short, a golden age.
- companies innovate and do more with the same amount of people
- new categories of product, research & art are created
- new categories open new possibilities, & new jobs, so people create even more.?
- repeat until society is unrecognisable
The nudge
The reality may be something in-between, or neither. But as an optimist, I am of course hopeful for B: Golden age.
However, consumer spending is tightly coupled with consumer sentiment, and the AI industry gave A: Death spiral, a headstart with their aggressively depressing sales pitch.
So how do we nudge it? We could hope our governments will intervene, and bet on regulation or a future with mandated universal income.
Economists have started to formalise the death spiral: One paper calls it "self-fulfilling automation"?, another "the AI layoff trap"?, but both end up with the same solution: tax and regulation.
But what if we could frame the conversation around competitive advantage?
What if we could demonstrate that on balance it is competitively advantageous for companies to do more stuff with the same people? And without doing so they will fall behind the competition.
What is the break-even point where doing more stuff is more competitively advantageous than reducing costs?
That's the conversation this website attempts to start.