by Michael Ferguson
A wonderful second installment to the Roundtable. I look forward to more contributions from you, Nicole.
I absolutely agree with you that people too narrowly define their productive identity. However, as I discuss in my article, 'The Finely Crafted Life', I consider it a mistake to compartmentalize one's productive activities as if they somehow function in isolation from one's other life experience modalities. In other words, I subscribe to the philosophy that one should not balance one's career and personal life, but rather should integrate them.
In the Information Age, Knowledge Professionals will be required to do this. Certainly, in Michael Barnathan's writings about polymathy he has expressed the notion of cultivating and maintaining several facets to one's productive activities. They don't need to be overly related. While I generally agree with Michael's perspective, even here, I think he unnecessarily fights integration. In other words, the productive modality is satisfied across several life activities.
The Polymathic Institute is a collaboration between polymathic intellectuals, visionary entrepreneurs and risk tolerant investors. In one sense it is an expression of how Information Age productive environments will differ from their Industrial Age counterparts. However, even in this description, much of the role distinctions are illusory. It is my personal objective, in different settings, to occupy all three of these roles. In a definitional sense, I am not any of these. Practically, I am a Knowledge Professional or, if one prefers, a Polymath.
A contemplation of both your article and my response may awaken a sense of just how profound the Transformation will be. It is not just a revolution in technology, but a fundamental rewrite of our social institutions and even the very way we think about the world. It is not so much that job descriptions and career paths will change, but rather that the whole concept of a job description, for Knowledge Professionals, will end.
Again, I am not a scientist, I am not a writer, I am not an entrepreneur, I am not my creative output, whether in the form of an invention, work product or enterprise. I am an engaged intellect involved in the never ending process of knowledge acquisition, intellectual exploration and creation.
I tend to refer to myself as a Polymath and to the class of people to which I belong as Knowledge Professionals.
I have had this interesting exchange.
Them: 'What do you do?'
Me: 'I'm a Polymath.'
Them: 'I'm not familiar with that profession. What does a Polymath do?'
Me: 'Whatever appears to be worthwhile.'
Leaves them a little confused. I attempt to clarify by saying that a Polymath doesn't do everything, but rather, when sculpting a finely crafted life, does not define the productive process within any particular specialty. As the Information Age civilization emerges an ever increasing number of people will get it.
You discuss in detail a different aspect, which in the Industrial Age, tended to get conflated with career - that of one's personal sense of worth and status. If someone asks you what you do, there is a clearly different communication of status if you say that you are a garbage collector rather than if you say you are a Physician. I knew a highly regarded Chemist, who, when asked, told people that he was a cook and bottle washer. He was quite consciously playing with the status communication.
One of the objectives of The Polymathic Institute is to cultivate the term, Polymath, as one that communicates high status. Some people, especially those who are attracted to the idea of Polymath, denigrate the notion of status. That is not really wise. Status can be engaged in foolishly to be sure. However, in its purist conceptual form, it is a statement of one's worth to their community. In that sense, status is admirable. Yes, of course, we want our life to be about more than our worth to our community. That, however, does not make it a bad thing.
I look forward to a growing Polymathic Round table and cherish your participation as our second member.
~Michael
Monday, November 1, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Letting Go of Your Work
by Nicole C. Tedesco
During the Industrial and Agricultural eras, individuals became comfortable becoming their work.
During the Industrial and Agricultural eras, individuals became comfortable becoming their work.
I am a doctor.
I am a lawyer.
I am a farmer.
Many inventors whose identity is "inventor" often end up wrapping their identity in their favorite invention. It is becoming increasingly apparent however that strong vocational identity may be counter-productive to financial survival in the maturing Information era.
The strength of vocational identity in the Industrial era and its impact on self-efficacy and self-esteem in western countries has been well documented and analyzed (e.g., Richardson , 2005[i]). The strength of this sentiment, the degree of importance of the vocation-role to the modern adult, was expressed even in terms of its effects on human sexuality by Ayn Rand , in her 1964 Playboy interview with Alvin Toffler ,
The only man capable of experiencing a profound romantic love is the man driven by passion for his work -- because love is an expression of self-esteem, of the deepest values in a man's or a woman's character.[ii]
In the maturing Information era however, this self-identity is increasingly challenged by instabilities in once easily identifiable “careers”, professions, crafts and other vocation-roles. Problems arise however from the process “…disengagement…from the role and the cultural context and web of relationships within which the role is embedded.” (Ashforth, 2010[iii]). People typically react to role exit with a sense of termination or failure of one’s past, followed by disappointment and self-doubt. Of course these emotions are added to the fears, anxieties and stress that will naturally accompany the financial uncertainty accompanying the loss of any paying job.
No healthy person wishes to lose their job, let alone realize that their participation in a role—a career—may have come to an end. The impact of such an event however can leave a person in disarray for years,
In most cases, the process of comparing a current role with role options took place in a vague and off-and-on way over a period of years until the pressures mounted or events occurred which significantly altered the perceived advantages or disadvantages of either the current or the alternative role.[iv]
In a world where the possibility of vocation dissolution is increasingly likely, it is obviously not desirable to suffer the increasing possibility of wasting increasing numbers of our precious years absorbing these insults to our psyches. We must, therefore, be increasingly prepared to face career dissolution, loss of vocation and the self-identity challenges that come with this phenomenon.
My personal experiences hint at a related phenomenon associated with the inventor assuming the identity of their favorite or salient invention.
I am my new mousetrap.
I am my new software application.
I am my new widget.
I believe that inventors who do not have an expectation of ownership of their intellectual property, such as employees who sign their invention rights away to their employers, may not often experience this problem. However, those that expect to make a business of their invention may find themselves in one of several intellectual and emotional traps that can thwart investment and partnership opportunities by insisting on:
· Zealous secrecy
· Maintaining complete ownership
· Managing every detail of development, marketing, quality, customer service and so on (micromanaging)
· Failure to adapt their invention to changes in the competitive landscape (e.g., react to similar inventions)
Our future very likely consists of an increasingly rapid pace of innovation in all fields of human endeavor. Those infected with invention-as-identity however, are probably increasingly exposed to those kinds of effects from the increasing pace of innovation which they themselves are engaging in. Some of those effects may also be similar to the effects on those who have lost their career; what happens to the inventor who, after years of hard work, finds a competitor who has already “beat them to the punch” and produced a finished product before them? What will happen to inventors as this phenomenon is increasingly likely to occur?
To effectively survive the maturing Information era, we must learn to let go of our work. How are workers, professionals and inventors to do this? How do we all keep from wasting precious years of our lives and frustrating ourselves in order to try to hold on to what cannot be held on to?
Ashforth provides some hints at effective coping mechanisms for those whose careers have dissolved, either by choice or otherwise:
· Social validation. Objective review of one’s status and options are important in helping to recover from shocks as rapidly as possible. I also suggest maintaining an understanding of the increased likelihood of career transition, and the reasons for it, amongst one’s peer group in order to aid in the avoidance of surprise and even other social effects such as shame.
· Role rehearsal. Anticipate a new identity, such as taking night courses in anticipation of full time retraining or volunteer in new positions of interest.
· Interact with new role models and peer groups. Learn what it means to be “someone else”.
· Acceptance. Ashforth describes individual differences in identity resolution capabilities. My suggestion in this regard is to practice, practice, practice thinking like and becoming something different. I also suggest generalizing one’s vocation-role; instead of, for instance, considering one’s self a “doctor” or “nurse” consider one’s self instead to be a “healer” or as someone who provides health products or services. This will cast the widest possible net across possible identities.
· Rituals. Adopt ritualistic “rights of passage” to mark separation from a career. The sooner that one understands that the past is past, the faster the future can be met.
· Opportunity for change. Understand career loss as an opportunity to learn new things, do new things and an opportunity to change things in one’s life that one did not have time to change previously.
I also recommend:
· Minimize financial and emotional risks. Try to keep a year’s worth of cash in your bank account. Try to minimize mortgage payments. Keep the number of “things” in your house and life to a minimum, or at least always be prepared to jettison the unnecessary in rough times. Understand your true priorities in life. Rent instead of lease or buy. Understand and internalize concepts of “transience”. Do not do this alone, but also involve your family and peers.
· Maintain social connections with those already “out”. You may be “out” someday. “Pay it forward” by understanding that those no longer in your work circle are still valuable sources of information and other resources for you now in your current job and in the future when you are in the same position as they are. There was a reason you worked together once, so there is no reason you will never work together again in the future. (Do this even if the person leaving did so voluntarily.)
These coping mechanisms also translate effectively to the inventor’s problems as discussed previously by understanding the term “invention” as a specific substitution for the word, “role”. (In fact, the inventor probably assumed the role of “inventor” initially and then focused their identity on their specialty, or “inventor of X”.) To the extent that an inventor can translate their identity from one invention to the next (assuming they are efficiently creative) or translate to a non-inventor role, the inventor is more likely to survive the turmoil in tomorrow’s increasingly dynamic marketplace for innovation.
Some of us may be good at this “vocation transition” process, but I suspect that many of us may not be, even into the future where the phenomenon becomes more widespread and training on how to handle these life changes is pushed through our society. Will future productivity in our society be increasingly divided between those few who can cope and the majority who cannot? Can such a society sustain itself?
[i] Mary Sue Richardson , Kesia Constantine , and Mara Washburn, "3 New Directions for Theory Development in Vocational Psychology," Handbook of Vocational Psychology: Theory, Research, and Practice, ed. W. Bruce Walsh and Mark L. Savickas , 3rd ed. ( Mahwah , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005) 51, Questia, Web, 25 Sept. 2010.
[ii] Alvin Toffler , “Playboy Interview: Ayn Rand ,” Playboy, March 1964, Web, 25 September 2010
href="http://www.playboy.com/articles/ayn-rand-playboy-interview/" title="Playboy Online">http://www.playboy.com/articles/ayn-rand-playboy-interview/
[iii] Blake E. Ashforth , “Role Transitions in Organizational Life: An Identity-Based Perspective” ( Mahwah , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001) 53, Questia, Web, 25 September 2010
[iv] Ebaugh, H.R.F., “Becoming an ex: The process of role exit,” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988)
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
The Information Age Income Explosion
by Michael Ferguson
From 1875 to 2010 U.S. GDP per capita increased 13.67 times. If the same growth happens during the Information Age, median household income will increase to about $760,000 per year . The good news is that it most likely will happen and this time it will take about 35 years not 135. The bad news is that there will be no jobs in the traditional sense of the word. You will not be able to go to a ‘Help Wanted’ site and get ‘hired’ by a ‘company’. These terms will all be casualties of the Transformation. Many people, siting Technological Unemployment, expect radical and generally unpleasant results. I believe that the period of Transformation will be tumultuous, but that, in the end, personal economics will be vastly improved. Consequently, I advise wise and clever people to begin planning immediately how they, personally, will become an Information Age entrepreneur.
In my writings on the Transformation, I state that prevailing standards of living in the developed world will double in ten years and quadruple in twenty years. At this rate, the 13.67 multiple will be reached in 2048. This prediction, if anything, is not dramatic enough. It may actually happen faster. It will be the result of the implementation of state-of-the-art robotics and artificial intelligence deployed within the agricultural, industrial and service sectors.
The inescapable corollary to this is that few jobs will remain untouched and most will simply disappear. In fact, for most people, their whole job category will be eliminated and most likely sooner rather than later. So, it seems, you will need to find something else to do. What you are doing now won't be an option. Even if your job category remains, your employer will not. You will need to find somewhere else and some other way to do it.
With regard to occupation and income, I expect that the population will experience a socio-economic trifurcation. In fact, this is happening already. At the bottom will be people who will receive a supplemental stipend that will assure some minimum standard of living. In the middle will be people who engage in productive activities within semi-automated service industries and will enjoy incomes substantially in excess of the established minimum income. At the top will be the entrepreneurial knowledge workers. This description, of course, is an oversimplification. However, it is a wonderful starting point as you become familiar with and conversant in the economics of the Information Age.
In a civilization where nearly half the households will have annual incomes in the millions, it is unlikely that political sentiment will countenance any penury whatsoever. Consequently, we suspect that there will be a stipend for those without sufficient self generated income. It most likely will meet or exceed a level of income that, today, would be considered middle class income. We can imagine that what will be considered the poverty level in twenty years will have quadrupled right along with the quadrupling of average and median incomes. In other words, one person will be guaranteed $40,830 per year, a couple or a custodial parent and child will be guaranteed $72,840 per year and the classic ‘family of four’ will be guaranteed $136,200 per year.
These rates, however, will likely be subject to some adjustment in order to assist in balancing the labor supply and demand. When the number of people searching for work is less than is required, the level of support provided to those who do not work will decrease, thus encouraging to supplement their income. When the number of people searching for work exceeds what is needed, the level of support will increase.
The middle socioeconomic level will be engaged in service activities that, while automated, retain a human function primarily because humans wish to interact with humans when they are consuming them. Take for example, a fast food restaurant. Even now, we could probably build a restaurant that, through automation and AI, could function without human intervention. However, generally, people would prefer to interact with a person during the ordering, delivering and paying process. The price differential between a $4.00 hamburger in a human mediated fast food restaurant and a $2.65 hamburger at a totally automated restaurant, in a very affluent society, is going to be insufficient to cause the majority of people to frequent the totally automated one.
Of course, with a median household income of $760K per year, one may assume that, over time, even a $4.00 personally delivered hamburger is likely to be an endangered species. It will be replaced in most settings with a more leisurely fine dining experience. A $15 fast food bill for an average family today will be proportionately the same as a $190 restaurant tab in 2048. Consequently, we will expect that frequently the purchased meal will involve a chef and maitre d’ overseeing an automated fine dining experience.
From landscaping to interior design to medicine, even if AI programs can perform as well or better than humans, the customer will still want to interact with another person. For example, a landscaper may interview a customer and then go back to his office and create a computer assisted design. The computer did much of the work, but (s)he will present it and, if the customer accepts the design and price, (s)he will arrive with landscaping robots and oversee the work while interacting, again, with the customer.
An AI diagnostic software program may provide the doctor with a list of diagnoses in descending order of probability and suggest further diagnostic tests. Already these programs outperform most doctors. Another AI program may give the doctors a comprehensive list of treatment options with the likely probability of success and suggest possible combinations of treatments. However, no matter how AI assisted, the patient will want to talk to the doctor, ask questions of the doctor and feel reassured by a person, not an AI program. That may change for people born and raised in the second half of the 21st Century, but it is a relatively safe prediction for the first half.
At the highest socio-economic level will be knowledge professionals, for the most part Polymaths, who will create and communicate visions and apply volition to the social, cultural and economic systems. They will engage in activities that, even if a computer could do them, humans will prefer to retain as their prerogative. This will include great thinkers, pundits and leaders who will teach, present and discuss. It will include great designers who, with the assistance of AI programs, will create new products, new services, comprehensively designed communities, etc. It will include scientists, artists, composers who will drive human progress in a uniquely human way. It will include entrepreneurs who will oversee the automated production processes.
These three categories are somewhat arbitrary and differ substantially from the classic idea of 'class.' Many people will spend portions of their lives in different categories. A person may be on stipend during periods of intense learning, in service activities early in their life and then, over time, find that their productive activities evolve into one or more of the knowledge professions. Additionally, some activities are actually a spectrum that bridges the service sector and the knowledge professions. Many people will engage in both. For example, a person may design clothes but also oversee their robotic manufacture. So, while the trifurcated socio-economic description is basically correct, it is not exactly correct and should not be interpreted too rigidly.
It is manifestly clear, however, that there is not a category designated as ‘employee’, professional level or otherwise. As we all are very aware, manufacturing jobs left developed countries to chase cheap labor in low labor rate locations. Today, we now find that professional jobs are chasing cheap labor in underdeveloped countries. These activities will be returning, but they will not reemploy the previously displaced workers. Rather, they will be automated. This can be expected to happen very rapidly.
Right now at the larger companies, automated AR and AP software is being installed. From the time of order to receipt to payment, human hands will not touch the process. As a consequence, million of clerical level and lower professional level employees will find that, not just their job, but their job classification has been eliminated.
Everyone should Google ‘DARPA 2007 Urban Challenge’ and see what was possible three years ago. Today, the technologies have progressed and the results are amazing. Perhaps by 2020 and certainly by 2030, anyone who currently makes a living by driving a vehicle will be out of a job. Nearly half the jobs done on a residential new construction site are well within current robotic technological ability. Clothing will be custom tailored by robot. I could go on and on, and I will in this roundtable discussion.
I do not expect that there will be an unabated geometric explosion past my estimated income levels that result in a 'Singularity'. In fact, I believe that the rate of growth in computer technology is abating already. However, much of what is already possible is not yet implemented. Consequently, robotics and applied AI will not reach economic maturity until, at least, 2050.
Right now, the global economy is in disarray. The U.S. and E.U. are in a anemic economic recovery that, due to technological unemployment, is not creating much reduction in unemployment. I expect that economic growth will accelerate, but so will the force of technological unemployment. Banks have trillions of dollars of unused lending capacity. Corporations have, in aggregate, about $3 trillion of cash on their balance sheets. In other words, the funds are available to finance a major automation and AI retooling. According to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey, investors would prefer companies used cash to increase capital expenditures rather than repair balance sheets.
Unit labor costs are falling at the fastest rate in the past 40 years. So, it appears that the automation that will drive the Income Explosion may already have started. It is just waiting for more clarity within the legislative and regulatory environments in order to accelerate to the predicted rates. Once this is realized, the cash and borrowing capacity can be moved quickly into capital expenditures.
In summary, this means that the current phenomenon of economic growth without increased employment will not only continue but will accelerate. Those people in the upper quartile in education will need to rapidly change their thinking from pursuit of highly compensated corporate employment opportunities to more entrepreneurial knowledge based activities. It will require aggressive pursuit of new opportunities in order to counteract the accelerating forces of technological unemployment. It is in this vein that I have created the Polymathic Institute. It is similar to LinkedIn.com, but is intended to bring together polymathic intellectuals, visionary entrepreneurs and risk tolerant investors in an environment conducive to creating the knowledge professions.
This is my perspective on the Income Explosion and Technological Unemployment. I am optimistic that the two can be properly balanced. I do not expect, as the Zeitgeist Movement does that in our lifetimes everyone will have whatever they want without work. I also do not expect an unabated accelerating growth to a Singularity. I do expect, however, a profound transformation of society and the economy. This discussion is completely absent in the broadcast and cable news media and in the political discourse. The awareness must be elevated or those who think that Technological Unemployment will outstrip the emergence of new economic activities are likely to be correct.
From 1875 to 2010 U.S. GDP per capita increased 13.67 times. If the same growth happens during the Information Age, median household income will increase to about $760,000 per year . The good news is that it most likely will happen and this time it will take about 35 years not 135. The bad news is that there will be no jobs in the traditional sense of the word. You will not be able to go to a ‘Help Wanted’ site and get ‘hired’ by a ‘company’. These terms will all be casualties of the Transformation. Many people, siting Technological Unemployment, expect radical and generally unpleasant results. I believe that the period of Transformation will be tumultuous, but that, in the end, personal economics will be vastly improved. Consequently, I advise wise and clever people to begin planning immediately how they, personally, will become an Information Age entrepreneur.
In my writings on the Transformation, I state that prevailing standards of living in the developed world will double in ten years and quadruple in twenty years. At this rate, the 13.67 multiple will be reached in 2048. This prediction, if anything, is not dramatic enough. It may actually happen faster. It will be the result of the implementation of state-of-the-art robotics and artificial intelligence deployed within the agricultural, industrial and service sectors.
The inescapable corollary to this is that few jobs will remain untouched and most will simply disappear. In fact, for most people, their whole job category will be eliminated and most likely sooner rather than later. So, it seems, you will need to find something else to do. What you are doing now won't be an option. Even if your job category remains, your employer will not. You will need to find somewhere else and some other way to do it.
With regard to occupation and income, I expect that the population will experience a socio-economic trifurcation. In fact, this is happening already. At the bottom will be people who will receive a supplemental stipend that will assure some minimum standard of living. In the middle will be people who engage in productive activities within semi-automated service industries and will enjoy incomes substantially in excess of the established minimum income. At the top will be the entrepreneurial knowledge workers. This description, of course, is an oversimplification. However, it is a wonderful starting point as you become familiar with and conversant in the economics of the Information Age.
In a civilization where nearly half the households will have annual incomes in the millions, it is unlikely that political sentiment will countenance any penury whatsoever. Consequently, we suspect that there will be a stipend for those without sufficient self generated income. It most likely will meet or exceed a level of income that, today, would be considered middle class income. We can imagine that what will be considered the poverty level in twenty years will have quadrupled right along with the quadrupling of average and median incomes. In other words, one person will be guaranteed $40,830 per year, a couple or a custodial parent and child will be guaranteed $72,840 per year and the classic ‘family of four’ will be guaranteed $136,200 per year.
These rates, however, will likely be subject to some adjustment in order to assist in balancing the labor supply and demand. When the number of people searching for work is less than is required, the level of support provided to those who do not work will decrease, thus encouraging to supplement their income. When the number of people searching for work exceeds what is needed, the level of support will increase.
The middle socioeconomic level will be engaged in service activities that, while automated, retain a human function primarily because humans wish to interact with humans when they are consuming them. Take for example, a fast food restaurant. Even now, we could probably build a restaurant that, through automation and AI, could function without human intervention. However, generally, people would prefer to interact with a person during the ordering, delivering and paying process. The price differential between a $4.00 hamburger in a human mediated fast food restaurant and a $2.65 hamburger at a totally automated restaurant, in a very affluent society, is going to be insufficient to cause the majority of people to frequent the totally automated one.
Of course, with a median household income of $760K per year, one may assume that, over time, even a $4.00 personally delivered hamburger is likely to be an endangered species. It will be replaced in most settings with a more leisurely fine dining experience. A $15 fast food bill for an average family today will be proportionately the same as a $190 restaurant tab in 2048. Consequently, we will expect that frequently the purchased meal will involve a chef and maitre d’ overseeing an automated fine dining experience.
From landscaping to interior design to medicine, even if AI programs can perform as well or better than humans, the customer will still want to interact with another person. For example, a landscaper may interview a customer and then go back to his office and create a computer assisted design. The computer did much of the work, but (s)he will present it and, if the customer accepts the design and price, (s)he will arrive with landscaping robots and oversee the work while interacting, again, with the customer.
An AI diagnostic software program may provide the doctor with a list of diagnoses in descending order of probability and suggest further diagnostic tests. Already these programs outperform most doctors. Another AI program may give the doctors a comprehensive list of treatment options with the likely probability of success and suggest possible combinations of treatments. However, no matter how AI assisted, the patient will want to talk to the doctor, ask questions of the doctor and feel reassured by a person, not an AI program. That may change for people born and raised in the second half of the 21st Century, but it is a relatively safe prediction for the first half.
At the highest socio-economic level will be knowledge professionals, for the most part Polymaths, who will create and communicate visions and apply volition to the social, cultural and economic systems. They will engage in activities that, even if a computer could do them, humans will prefer to retain as their prerogative. This will include great thinkers, pundits and leaders who will teach, present and discuss. It will include great designers who, with the assistance of AI programs, will create new products, new services, comprehensively designed communities, etc. It will include scientists, artists, composers who will drive human progress in a uniquely human way. It will include entrepreneurs who will oversee the automated production processes.
These three categories are somewhat arbitrary and differ substantially from the classic idea of 'class.' Many people will spend portions of their lives in different categories. A person may be on stipend during periods of intense learning, in service activities early in their life and then, over time, find that their productive activities evolve into one or more of the knowledge professions. Additionally, some activities are actually a spectrum that bridges the service sector and the knowledge professions. Many people will engage in both. For example, a person may design clothes but also oversee their robotic manufacture. So, while the trifurcated socio-economic description is basically correct, it is not exactly correct and should not be interpreted too rigidly.
It is manifestly clear, however, that there is not a category designated as ‘employee’, professional level or otherwise. As we all are very aware, manufacturing jobs left developed countries to chase cheap labor in low labor rate locations. Today, we now find that professional jobs are chasing cheap labor in underdeveloped countries. These activities will be returning, but they will not reemploy the previously displaced workers. Rather, they will be automated. This can be expected to happen very rapidly.
Right now at the larger companies, automated AR and AP software is being installed. From the time of order to receipt to payment, human hands will not touch the process. As a consequence, million of clerical level and lower professional level employees will find that, not just their job, but their job classification has been eliminated.
Everyone should Google ‘DARPA 2007 Urban Challenge’ and see what was possible three years ago. Today, the technologies have progressed and the results are amazing. Perhaps by 2020 and certainly by 2030, anyone who currently makes a living by driving a vehicle will be out of a job. Nearly half the jobs done on a residential new construction site are well within current robotic technological ability. Clothing will be custom tailored by robot. I could go on and on, and I will in this roundtable discussion.
I do not expect that there will be an unabated geometric explosion past my estimated income levels that result in a 'Singularity'. In fact, I believe that the rate of growth in computer technology is abating already. However, much of what is already possible is not yet implemented. Consequently, robotics and applied AI will not reach economic maturity until, at least, 2050.
Right now, the global economy is in disarray. The U.S. and E.U. are in a anemic economic recovery that, due to technological unemployment, is not creating much reduction in unemployment. I expect that economic growth will accelerate, but so will the force of technological unemployment. Banks have trillions of dollars of unused lending capacity. Corporations have, in aggregate, about $3 trillion of cash on their balance sheets. In other words, the funds are available to finance a major automation and AI retooling. According to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey, investors would prefer companies used cash to increase capital expenditures rather than repair balance sheets.
Unit labor costs are falling at the fastest rate in the past 40 years. So, it appears that the automation that will drive the Income Explosion may already have started. It is just waiting for more clarity within the legislative and regulatory environments in order to accelerate to the predicted rates. Once this is realized, the cash and borrowing capacity can be moved quickly into capital expenditures.
In summary, this means that the current phenomenon of economic growth without increased employment will not only continue but will accelerate. Those people in the upper quartile in education will need to rapidly change their thinking from pursuit of highly compensated corporate employment opportunities to more entrepreneurial knowledge based activities. It will require aggressive pursuit of new opportunities in order to counteract the accelerating forces of technological unemployment. It is in this vein that I have created the Polymathic Institute. It is similar to LinkedIn.com, but is intended to bring together polymathic intellectuals, visionary entrepreneurs and risk tolerant investors in an environment conducive to creating the knowledge professions.
This is my perspective on the Income Explosion and Technological Unemployment. I am optimistic that the two can be properly balanced. I do not expect, as the Zeitgeist Movement does that in our lifetimes everyone will have whatever they want without work. I also do not expect an unabated accelerating growth to a Singularity. I do expect, however, a profound transformation of society and the economy. This discussion is completely absent in the broadcast and cable news media and in the political discourse. The awareness must be elevated or those who think that Technological Unemployment will outstrip the emergence of new economic activities are likely to be correct.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)