Who Will Prosper in the New World. By Tyler Cowen. New York Times, August 31, 2013.
To Succeed, Obey the Robots. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, September 7, 2013.
Mead:
Do what
the robots tell you, and you’ll succeed. That’s one of the messages of Average is Over, the latest book from TAI board member Tyler Cowen. The book
explores how America’s economy, culture, and politics will be transformed in
age in which computers and robots can increasingly do a lot of traditional
human tasks. Cowen has a piece in the Times
adapted from the book, as well as a great interview with TechCrunch, explaining
more.
The Times article breaks people down into
two categories: those who will do well in the “machine economy,” and those who
won’t. One of the categories here especially caught our attention:
There
will be a lot more wealth in this brave new world, but it won’t be very evenly
distributed because a lot of human labor won’t seem like a special or scarce
resource. Capturing the attention of customers with just the right human touch
will command an increasing premium. Don’t forget that Mark Zuckerberg was a
psychology major in addition to being a tech genius. Sheer technical skill can
be done by the machines, but integrating the tech side with an
attention-grabbing innovation is a lot harder.
What
Cowen calls “the marketing touch” jibes with what we’ve been saying about the service jobs of the future. Cowen is right that technology will increase income
inequality, which will leave the 99 percent with two choices: to “club” the
money out of the one percent, or “charm” it out of them by offering services
presented with a marketing flair. Like Cowen, we think the charmers will do the
best in the new economy, and ultimately their success will improve quality of
life will increase for everyone.
Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation. By Tyler Cowen. New York: Dutton Adult, 2013.
How Technology Wrecks the Middle Class. By David H. Autor and David Dorn. New York Times, August 24, 2013.
Average Is Over. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, January 24, 2012.
Was America’s Prosperity an Accident of History? By Benjamin Wallace-Wells. NJBR, July 22, 2013. The Blip with related articles.
Keen On . . . Smart Machines: The Next Big Thing For Smart Human Beings. By Andrew Keen. Video. Interview with Tyler Cowen. TechCrunch, September 3, 2013. YouTube.
Cowen:
Self-driving
vehicles threaten to send truck drivers to the unemployment office. Computer
programs can now write journalistic accounts of sporting events and stock price
movements. There are even computers that can grade essay exams with reasonable
accuracy, which could revolutionize my own job, teaching. Increasingly,
machines are providing not only the brawn but the brains, too, and that raises
the question of where humans fit into this picture — who will prosper and who
won’t in this new kind of machine economy?
Who
will do well?
THE CONSCIENTIOUS: Within
five years we are likely to have the world’s best education, or close to it,
online and free. But not everyone will sit down and go through the material
without a professor pushing them to do the work.
Those
who are motivated to use online resources will do much, much better in the
generations to come. It’s already the case that the best students from India
are at the top in many Coursera classes, putting America’s arguably less
motivated bright young people to shame. “Free” doesn’t really help you if you
don’t make an effort.
PEOPLE WHO LISTEN TO COMPUTERS: Your
smartphone will record data on your life and, when asked, will tell you what to
do, drawing on data from your home or from your spouse and friends if need be.
“You’ve thrown out that bread the last three times you’ve bought it, give it a
pass” will be a text message of the future. How about “Now is not the time to
start another argument with your wife”? The GPS is just the beginning of
computer-guided instruction.
Take
your smartphone on a date, and it might vibrate in your pocket to indicate
“Kiss her now.” If you hesitate for fear of being seen as pushy, it may write:
“Who cares if you look bad? You are sampling optimally in the quest for a lifetime
companion.”Those who won’t listen, or who rebel out of spite, will be missing
out on glittering prizes. Those of us who listen, while often envied, may feel
more like puppets with deflated pride.
PEOPLE WITH A MARKETING TOUCH: There
will be a lot more wealth in this brave new world, but it won’t be very evenly
distributed because a lot of human labor won’t seem like a special or scarce
resource. Capturing the attention of customers with just the right human touch
will command an increasing premium. Don’t forget that Mark Zuckerberg was a
psychology major in addition to being a tech genius. Sheer technical skill can
be done by the machines, but integrating the tech side with an
attention-grabbing innovation is a lot harder.
MOTIVATORS: A lot
of jobs will consist of making people feel either very good or very bad about
themselves. Coaches, mentors and disciplinarians will spread to many areas of
life, at least for those of us who can stand to listen to them. These people
will cajole us, flatter us and shame us into improving our lives, our work
habits and our consumption. That’s why so many people go to yoga class instead
of relying on the podcast. Managers who are motivators of first-rate talent
will see their earnings continue to rise.
Who
will be most likely to suffer from this technological revolution?
PEOPLE WITH DELICATE FEELINGS: Computing
and software will make it easier to measure performance and productivity.
It will
be harder to gloss over our failings and maintain self-deception. In essence
everyone will suffer the fate of professional chess players, who always know
when they have lost a game, have an exact numerical rating for their overall
performance, and find excuses for failure hard to come by.
Individuals
will have many measures of their proficiency. They will have an incentive to
disclose that information to get the better job or social opportunity. You’ll
assume the worst about those who keep secrets, and so openness will reign. Many
of us will start to hate the idea of Big Data.
PEOPLE UNLUCKY IN HEALTH CARE: Quality
surgery and cancer treatment cannot be automated very easily. They will be
highly expensive, and unlucky health breaks will be all the more tragic because
not everyone will be able to afford the best treatments.
With
marvelous diagnosis available online, some people will get the right treatments
early on, whereas others will know exactly what they are dying from.
PEOPLE WHO DON’T NEED MONEY: We are
used to thinking in terms of rich, poor and middle class, but those categories
will change. Berlin’s eastern neighborhoods and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, are a
window onto our future. These urban areas are full of people who are bright,
culturally literate, Internet-savvy and far from committed to the idea of hard
work directed toward earning a good middle-class living. We’ll need a new name
for the group of people who have the incomes of the lower middle class and the
cultural habits of the wealthy or upper middle class. They will spread a
libertarian worldview that working for other people full time is an abominable
way to get by.
POLITICAL RADICALS: A
mechanized, computer-driven, highly unequal future is sometimes viewed as a
recipe for rebellion. But the Edward J. Snowden saga shows this won’t be easy,
as tech is at least as much an instrument for surveillance and control as it is
for revolt. We’re also aging rapidly, and that tends to make society more
peaceful, less violent and less extreme in all directions. It was the 1960s, a
peak era for manufacturing jobs and the American middle class, that brought so
much social turmoil and unrest. The more that work is done by machines, the
less compelling is the case for putting your manufacturing in a distant country
where wages are low. If there is any big winner from all of these trends, it is
probably the good ol’ United States.
