Fear of Automation

Arun Sundararajan

is a professor of business at New York University, and the author of "

The Sharing

Economy

: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism." He is on

Twitter

,

@digitalarun.

UPDATED

OCTOBER 4, 2016, 3:21 AM

Fears of widespread automation and an imminent “

world without work

” have risen as advances in

digital technology herald the emergence of increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence. A distinct

air of technological determinism – that the technology by itself dictates its broader economic and

societal impacts – surrounds these dire

predictions

, while ignoring the political and organizational

factors that often shape the nature and pace of social change. Society can amplify automation's
benefits while limiting its harm.

Artificial intelligence can also expand human capabilities rather than substituting for them.

Government policy and research funding should favor the development of artificial intelligence that
expands human capabilities rather than substituting for them. For example, artificial intelligence-

based

medical diagnostics systems

and

instructional technology

can broadly expand the reach of health

care and education, especially in less prosperous countries, by empowering a broader fraction of the
population to participate in these professions.

Investments in physical and social infrastructure must allow the benefits of automation to be widely

shared. When cars become autonomous, cities can be redesigned to improve the quality of urban life.
And as corporate employees get replaced by a more independent and entrepreneurial workforce, a

trend

already apparent today

, benefits like paid time off, workplace insurance and income stability are

available to fewer, challenging a social safety net that is contingent on full-time employment.

Fashioning and funding a next-generation social contract, perhaps as a

new partnership

between the

government, the individual and the institution, or maybe even as a

universal basic income

, may be

instrumental in preventing modern-day versions of the

Luddite rebellions

that accompanied the

Industrial Revolution.
Eventually, whether technological progress will increase or diminish human employment has always

been a race between education and technology. The benefits of digitally enabled automation can thus

be amplified by a reinvention of our educational system. As the cognitive capabilities of machines
expand, the economy will need less STEM education in its workforce, and more design thinking,

entrepreneurship and creativity instead. And perhaps more caring, empathy and compassion as well,
human qualities most likely to differentiate us from the machines we compete with for the jobs of the

future.