Cooking the Books 1 – AI in perspective

‘Vinod Khosla, the businessman, venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, told the On Technology podcast that AI would lead to fewer jobs but would increase productivity so greatly that it would lift economic growth. There would be greater redistribution of wealth to even out income equality and he predicted that in 25 years’ time, 64 per cent of all jobs would be capable of being done by AI: ‘There will be enough to afford a minimal standard of living for everyone, to pay them to live and do things that are useful, but not in today’s jobs.’” (Times, 22 August)

We have been told this before. Nearly 60 years ago an article in the January 1965 Socialist Standard on ‘Automation in Perspective’ noted:

‘A writer in Sunday Citizen (6 Dec. 1964), Mr. Stanley Baron, after he had talked “to the top brains in Britain” made the forecast that before the end of the century, “in every industrial country, certainly in the West, most of the essential work will be performed by about 20 per cent of the people—chiefly the most intelligent. The rest of us will work only as much as we wish—or as much as society requires’” (tinyurl.com/ycxr4w28).

So what went wrong? Basically, a failure to take into account that we are living under capitalism.

Capitalism is an economic system geared to the accumulation of profits as more capital invested in production for profit. It is not a system geared to improving the life of the majority.

New wealth, when it is produced, is initially divided into wages, which essentially cover what workers need to consume to recreate their ability to work, and profits. Profits are the part that in theory could be used to improve living standards. Some is taxed by the capitalist state to maintain itself, some is consumed by the capitalist class to maintain and improve its standard of living, but most is destined for re-investment in production, so expanding productive capacity. This is what drives the capitalist economy.

Given this, what Baron predicted was never going to happen. Profits were never going to be diverted to provide workers with a standard of living above what was necessary to maintain them as workers. Any attempt to do this would have clogged up the capitalist economic system by undermining its driving force.

Productivity did increase but not by as much as implied, once again because of capitalism where automation is only introduced if it is cheaper than employing workers, not as soon as it reduces the total amount of work involved. There was a redistribution of work from the manufacturing to the service sector including the capitalist state.

Baron’s figure of only about 20 percent doing ‘essential work’ — producing useful things and services — could be accurate. However, instead of this resulting in 80 percent being able to lead a life of leisure, the number of jobs that don’t produce anything or anything useful increased. These jobs, such as all those concerned with buying and selling, paying money, and providing buildings and hardware for this, are essential for capitalism to function, but not for society to survive.

Khosla will fare no better. AI will increase productivity but not by as much as he says, and certainly not spectacularly. The fact that 64 percent of jobs ‘would be capable of being done by AI does not mean that they all will be. And, are the capitalists going to allow their profits to be taxed to pay everybody a state income appreciably above the poverty line? Will any government even try to do this in the knowledge that it would undermine the driving force of capitalism?

Only on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources can production be geared to satisfying people’s needs, all the easier given the disappearance of inessential capitalist jobs, and automation and AI allow a reduction in work-time all round.

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