What if AI becomes better than humans at everything?
Discussions on AI’s impact on the workplace so far have primarily focused on which jobs are threatened by AI (e.g., production and service) and how to use AI to improve human performance in tasks that need to be still undertaken by humans (e.g., healthcare, journalism, and research). However, since the pace of technological advancement is exponentially accelerating, I believe that every job being replaced by AI is a probable scenario. Thus, it is worthwhile to question — “What if AI becomes better than people at virtually everything that used to be performed by humans?”
Some might still argue that this is an unrealistic scenario — humans will always have an edge in some tasks. However, with remarkable developments in technology in the last decade, AI is showing super-human performances in various tasks that were deemed to be impossible to tackle for a long time. About two decades after Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov, then the Chess world champion, DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeated the world champion Go player Lee Se-dol [1]. Applications of AI nowadays reach far beyond game boards. DeepMind also developed an AI system that can potentially outperform doctors in screening breast cancers [2]and AI-generated artwork was sold for $432,500 at Christie’s in 2018 [3]. Thus, I believe that it is highly likely that the necessity for human labor participation can be significantly reduced, if not completely eradicated in the future.
Society in which people do not need to “work for a living”
Now, let’s assume that we are living in a society where humans are no longer needed for most vital functions that are essential for sustaining the global economy (e.g., agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, public administration, etc.). Many people might expect such a society to be dull, stagnant, and stale since nobody will be motivated to “work.” However, I agree with Bertrand Russell that work is “emphatically not one of the ends of human life” and a major source of true innovations [4]. Many great discoveries and achievements came from the social class that did not “work for a living,” such as citizens of ancient Greece, aristocrats of modern Europe, and Brahmins of the Indian caste system. Thus, I believe that such changes in the workplaces requiring less human labor will benefit people and the entire society in the long run.
Nevertheless, there will be dramatic changes in society at large and our personal lives, which will not necessarily be pleasant in our first encounter with them. What is important is we face and embrace them with an open-minded attitude and a willingness to learn from them. The following are some of the themes that I expect to emerge in the upcoming years in which machines will replace most (if not all) humans in the workplace.
From Work to Play
In our society, work is usually associated with drudgery, hardship, solemn duty, and morality. Furthermore, leisure time is usually devoted to activities people engage in to relieve the stress accumulated during working hours. However, few people who genuinely enjoy what they do report that they do not feel like “working.” Instead, they feel like they are playing — also known as the flow state, being in the zone, or being in the now. Once people are relieved from “work for a living,” more and more will be able to find what they truly like to do and find happiness even when they are “working.”
Social Equity
Some might fear that a society in which no one works will end up being an inequitable society that does not have objective criteria to compensate people fairly, regressing to outdated social structures such as communism and monarchy. I think this is a valid point since there is always a possibility of deterioration and corruption in any society. For instance, I am not against capitalism and the free economy, but our current capitalist society has its flaws. Think about the bankers who made enormous profits at the tremendous expense of average working people, leading to the subprime mortgage default crisis in 2008. Similarly, I would not be surprised to see some people finding loopholes in the system only for their benefit in the new economy shaped by AI. What is important is average persons like you and I remain constantly vigilant and curious to prevent the system from deteriorating and being corrupted.
Existential Dilemma
As I discussed in my earlier posting [5], many people in our society identify themselves with the social role they are playing in families, workplaces, etc. Therefore, changes in the workplace can lead to a crisis in, or even a complete collapse of, people’s self-conceived ideas of who they are and why they live. This can cause more people to question the status quo, which might lead to more chaos, an example of which is a generational conflict between Gen Z and the older generations in work norms these days [6]. On the other hand, such chaos can work as a fertile ground to inquire more fundamental questions about ourselves, society, and the universe. In fact, this is a genuine “niche,” in which AI cannot make a significant contribution in my opinion. AI might be a million times more productive in conventional work than humans, but it cannot answer most questions regarding the nature of reality, self-realization, transcendence, and human existence, most of which remain unexplored territories in human consciousness.
Imagining the future of AI and its impact on fundamental facets of our lives such as work is always a fascinating topic for me. How do you think our workplaces will change in the future with technological advances? Let me know your thoughts!
