Photo Credit: Fossbytes
I chose today— a seemingly historic
day, comparable to John Dean’s pivotal Watergate testimony— to offer a serious
look into a different and in some ways more serious political debate in our nation's future.
AI (artificial intelligence) and
robots are rapidly deskilling many kinds of work.
An Oxford University report
from 2013 predicted that 35 percent of the U.K.’s workforce could be replaced
soon by new technology. The British Royal Society of Arts echoed this finding,
stating: “Machines are becoming more sophisticated and this can only mean the
displacement of workers and the driving down of wages.”
McKinsey—a global leader in
consulting—recently concluded: “Over the next ten to 15 years, the adoption of
automation and AI technologies will transform the workplace as people
increasingly interact with ever-smarter machines. These technologies, and that
human-machine interaction, will bring numerous benefits in the form of higher
productivity, GDP growth, improved corporate performance, and new prosperity,
but they will also change the skills required of human workers.”
They add: “There will be a
shift in demand toward higher cognitive skills. Our research also finds a shift
from activities that require only basic cognitive skills to those that use
higher cognitive skills. Demand for higher cognitive skills, such as
creativity, critical thinking, decision making, and complex information
processing, will grow through 2030, by 19 percent in the United States and by
14 percent in Europe, from sizable bases today. However, work activities that require
only basic cognitive skills, such as basic literacy and numeracy, will decline
as automation advances.”
Finland, grappling with the early
phases of this job displacement, enacted a “universal income” policy. Unlike
unemployment, it was meant to guarantee everyone a minimum standard of living—and
allow society to proceed with diffusing job-killing technology.
This ended in December 2017, when the
Finnish parliament introduced legislation requiring jobless people to work at
least 18 hours every three months to qualify for unemployment benefits.
Point: Technology will accentuate
workplace winners and losers, likely creating more losers as defined by loss of
job or lower returns on individual skills—in other words, more commoditization of
labor (called "crappy jobs" today).
Democrats will likely push for basic
income.
Perhaps some Republicans will join—those
who are aligned with big businesses and who recognize the reality that large-scale
job loss is disruptive for a democracy.
But Republicans might also make
biblical arguments—arguments I find pertinent to the meaning of our lives as we
go about doing our “work.”
So, here are some biblical insights
about the innate value of work:
Photo Credit: Seedtime.com
Deuteronomy
15:7-11
Give generously to them and do so
without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD
your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your
hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I
command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and
needy in your land.
Ecclesiastes
3:12-13
12 I know that there is nothing
better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each
of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all
their toil—this is the gift of God.
Proverbs
14:23
23 All hard work
brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Proverbs 10:4
4 Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring
wealth.
Genesis 2:1-3
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were
completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3. Then God blessed
the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he
rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
***
Hopefully, our nation will be wiser and more unified, and we will have more honest political leaders than today.
This campaign question will go to the core meaning of our society.
This campaign question will go to the core meaning of our society.
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