AI, Income, Employment, and Meaning

Abstract

Betsey Stevenson* * Betsey Stevenson is an Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; a visiting Associate Professor of Economics, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; a Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Research Affiliate, Centre for Economic Policy Research, London, United Kingdom, and a Research Fellow, CESifo, Munich, Germany. E‐mail address is betseys@umich.edu). The evolution of artificial intelligence evokes strong emotions in people. Some imagine a dystopia in which people are replaced by machines. Machines will develop the content we read, the entertainment we enjoy. Artificial intelligence will pick our friends and our politicians, and ultimately take away any sense of human agency. And worst of all, those machines will deprive us of work. Human beings will lose meaning and income and perhaps ultimately be driven to extinction. At the other end of the spectrum are those that envision the potential for utopia. With machines doing all the work, people will have plenty of income, yet very little unpleasant work to do. Instead, people will spend their days enjoying art and music. They will pursue their passions unburdened by the need to provide for their basic wants. They will feed their intellectual curiosity and fulfil the human demand for personal interactions. In short, people will be able to enjoy their lives with the freedom from time and money constraints, that artificial intelligence provides. So who is right? Income is not the problem Economists think that we know the answer, at least part of it. Most economists believe that automation promises a future of higher income that stems from the higher productivity that artificial intelligence will provide. In September 2017, the Chicago Booth IGM Forum's “Economic Experts Panel” asked 41 economists from top universities in the United States whether they strongly agreed, agreed, were uncertain, disagreed, or strongly disagreed with the following statement: Rising use of robots and artificial intelligence in advanced countries is likely to create benefits large enough that they could be used to compensate those workers who are substantially negatively affected for their lost wages. The answer was clear, no one disagreed with that statement. A few economists—ten percent— were uncertain, and the modal answer was agree, rather than strongly agree. Yet, it’s clear that economists believe that artificial intelligence represents an opportunity for substantial economic gains. Indeed, productivity gains have been at the heart of improvements in living standards from the beginning of time. And so, it is difficult to imagine a world in which