A Better Future With AI
What I read: Moore's Law for Everything by Sam Altman.
I sound like a broken record when I talk to friends and associates and say that our world and its employment landscape are going to change dramatically, and quickly, due to artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and robotics. I continue to stand by that assertion.
How will these rapidly unfolding trends affect individuals and society as a whole? Even the best of futurist pundits have varying predictions. One sentiment they all seem to share though is that change is coming, and that the change will be relatively rapid. AI is especially poised to dramatically alter the social and economic landscape. As Altman describes it,
The coming change will center around the most impressive of our capabilities: the phenomenal ability to think, create, understand, and reason. To the three great technological revolutions–the agricultural, the industrial, and the computational–we will add a fourth: the AI revolution.
Altman is quite clear that the AI revolution is here, and it is unstoppable. Society needs some serious introspection on how the revolution might play out to ensure that it bolsters the lives of as many people as possible. AI, if not properly constrained, could create some bad outcomes.
That said, Altman’s article errs on the side of the potential upsides for this technology.
This revolution will generate enough wealth for everyone to have what they need, if we as a society manage it responsibly.
It is the “if we as a society mange it responsibly” part that is the crux of the debate we must now have because if we wait the technological tsunami will be upon us, and drown us. We must properly plan for AI’s implementation. People’s lives will fall through the cracks unless we lay the foundation for the utilization of AI to benefit all of humanity.
Of course, there are those who hear about the approaching changes to society as a result of various technologies and literally or figuratively roll their eyes at such predictions. I try to point out to people making such protestations that they simply need to look back into recent history for examples of dramatic changes that progressed at nowhere near the rate AI and accompanying technologies are reaching today. Altman points out the same history.
Compare how the world looked 15 years ago (no smartphones, really), 150 years ago (no combustion engine, no home electricity), 1,500 years ago (no industrial machines), and 15,000 years ago (no agriculture).
The article focuses on the wealth that technology will eventually generate and why we must think ahead to how that wealth will be redistributed so that it benefits as much of mankind as possible. I am an avowed if not at times reluctant capitalist, but with an extremely strong left-leaning worldview that the wealth disparity that has emerged from modern capitalism running amok is unacceptable.
I know utopian dreams of an entirely socialist society play out well in theory, but thus far I have not seen pure socialism without capitalist underpinnings working anywhere in the world. Perhaps someday they will, but I am doubtful. I think Altman’s realistic view is a wise one that the capitalist wealth generated going forward by AI and other technological advances should be shared among all of society. If someone labels me a socialist for agreeing, so be it. It is befuddling that anyone can step back from the reality of what rampant, often unchecked capitalism has wrought and believe it is fine as is.
It seems my views are in sync with Altman’s.
Capitalism is a powerful engine of economic growth because it rewards people for investing in assets that generate value over time, which is an effective incentive system for creating and distributing technological gains. But the price of progress in capitalism is inequality.
Some inequality is ok–in fact, it’s critical, as shown by all systems that have tried to be perfectly equal–but a society that does not offer sufficient equality of opportunity for everyone to advance is not a society that will last.
Altman then offers what I think is an innovative solution to address the increased wealth building power of technology as it overtakes our lives and runs more of our businesses – tax capital rather than people’s labor.
We should therefore focus on taxing capital rather than labor, and we should use these taxes as an opportunity to directly distribute ownership and wealth to citizens. In other words, the best way to improve capitalism is to enable everyone to benefit from it directly as an equity owner.
The gist of Altman’s contention is that by taxing capital (Altman offers an interesting taxing and distribution scenario) we will create incentives among all parties of the economic puzzle. One of the ways suggested is to tax capital generated by companies, perhaps by creating a fund that would be capitalized by company shares from those companies at a certain level of market valuation. Privately held land could be taxed in dollars. Altman feels this approach would foster positive motivation (incentives) for all rather than the lopsided approach we follow today.
A tax payable in company shares will align incentives between companies, investors, and citizens, whereas a tax on profits does not–incentives are superpowers, and this is a critical difference.
If this all sounds a bit like the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI), in my estimation it is quite similar. The funding and distribution mechanisms might differ from those touted for UBI strategies thus far proposed, but the result is the same – every citizen gets a piece of the economic pie. Whether we call it UBI or something else does not matter.
I think this is a truly creative way to view how we maintain a functioning system of capitalism while ensuring we lift people out of poverty and adequately share wealth with everyone. Equity is the goal. Everyone deserves to live a comfortable life and to pursue their dreams. We need to stop the treadmill to nowhere of a system that proliferates the zero-sum notion of winners and losers. Why can’t we all be winners? I think Altman’s suggestions deserve consideration by thought and government leaders.
I think the best summation of Altman’s proposed strategy is this.
If everyone owns a slice of American value creation, everyone will want America to do better: collective equity in innovation and in the success of the country will align our incentives. The new social contract will be a floor for everyone in exchange for a ceiling for no one, and a shared belief that technology can and must deliver a virtuous circle of societal wealth.
I find it interesting that at a time when President Biden is rolling out his ambitious infrastructure and jobs plans, plans that have been likened to the accomplishments of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Altman points out that such sweeping changes are necessary to adapt to contemporary and future realities.
In the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt was able to enact a huge social safety net that no one would have thought possible five years earlier. We are in a similar moment now. So a movement that is both pro-business and pro-people will unite a remarkably broad constituency.
I recommend you read Altman’s article in its entirety and begin to socialize its ideas among your friends, family, and associates. The time is now to begin to lay the foundation for a better future as AI, automation, and robotics alter our everyday existence in monumental ways.
As American athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee once said,
It’s better to look ahead and prepare, than to look back and regret.
That is good advice.