Viewpoint: Artificial Intelligence and Labour
This addresses concerns about AI's impact on labor and welfare for society, but it is incremental as it builds on existing economic debates.
The paper argues that fears of technological unemployment due to AI are irrational based on past trends, and instead suggests that the main issue will be the normalization of extremely long working hours.
The welfare of modern societies has been intrinsically linked to wage labour. With some exceptions, the modern human has to sell her labour-power to be able reproduce biologically and socially. Thus, a lingering fear of technological unemployment features predominately as a theme among Artificial Intelligence researchers. In this short paper we show that, if past trends are anything to go by, this fear is irrational. On the contrary, we argue that the main problem humanity will be facing is the normalisation of extremely long working hours.