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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

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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.
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.