Anxiety about a dystopian “future of work” caused by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest outbreak of a remarkably persistent meme with a very long history. Before rushing to panic, or intervening to minimize anticipated harms, it is helpful to pause, take a deep breath, and consider what we already know about the effects of technological change on labor markets, and how this might influence the current response.
First, human beings are terrible at predicting the future. While John Maynard Keynes may have had a lot to say about monetary policy, his 1930 predictions about technological unemployment arising from “our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour” proved wide of the mark. Had he been correct, we would now be struggling with how to purposefully deploy all our newfound leisure time created by technological change rather than stressing about it taking away our jobs — not to mention working on average as many, if not more, hours per week as in 1930.
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