The introduction of the machines makes possible the development of spheres of production, and markets that otherwise would not have been possible, and thereby, both raises living standards and makes employment more secure. For example, in 1865, Britain did not have 100 million workers to have been able to produce the yarn, with spinning wheels, that was then spun by 500,000 people using spinning machines. Or take another example. Engels owned shares in the Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company that was established to build a Channel Tunnel. Such proposals had existed for nearly a century, but been impractical due to the costs. The company developed a tunnel boring machine, that reduced these costs, and was used to dig the Mersey Tunnel between Liverpool and Birkenhead.
So, theoretically a Channel Tunnel might have been dug using say, 100,000 navvies, but never would have been because the cost of doing so would have made it unprofitable. The tunnel boring machine of the Anglo-French Submarine Railway Company, reduced that cost, but was still too high. In the end, it was the technology of TML, and its tunnel boring machine that made it feasible. It may only have employed say, 10,000 workers, as against the 100,000 navvies, but the difference is these were real, actually employed workers, not theoretical, never employed workers. Moreover, these workers tended to be more skilled than were navvies. The consequence was also a basis for a much greater expansion of the market and capital accumulation.
A similar thing can be seen with the development of personal computers used, now, almost ubiquitously, as against mainframe computers that were used only by large government departments and corporations. The automation of the process of decoding the human genome, the cost of which has come down to less than 1% of its original cost, has spawned a range of industries from it, that now provide outlets for capital accumulation, and relatively high value employment, and so on. The experience of all technological development and automation has far from been an increase in unemployment, precarity and falling incomes.
So far, the development of AI systems has been pretty much of the nature of previous long wave cycles, in which one or another sector sees development, whereas it is only as a result of a crisis of overproduction that capital engages in wholesale technological innovation. Despite Roberts' claims about current low levels of profits, the rate of profit remains high, apart from a fall due to the imposition of lockdowns. Labour is no longer plentiful as it was in the 1980's and 90's, and Brexit and other nationalistic impediments have made labour markets more rigid. But, existing annual productivity gains, plus the potential for additional labour supplies as the plethora of zombie businesses go bust, releasing capital and labour, means that we are not at the stage of the 1970's, where capital needs such a thoroughgoing transformation, and the costs of investment in technological development.
The long wave cycle was hibernated as a result of the fiscal austerity measures, and QE introduced after 2010, and the policies of trade restrictions, and lockdowns imposed in the last years of the last decade. The US alone has trade sanctions on a third of the world's economies! Consequently, the uptrend phase that would have ended around 2025, is now likely to extend out to around 2035, and only at that point is capital likely to face a new crisis of overproduction of capital requiring a new technological revolution to replace labour and create a relative surplus population. AI, will undoubtedly form a part of that development.
As for AI itself, it should be seen as the child of humanity. The human body as it is presently constituted is not suited for the future, because, despite the developments in genetics, epigenetics and medical science that make the possibility of extending lifespans closer than it has ever been – developments themselves facilitated by the use of computer technology and AI – our organic bodies are subject to wear and tear, and easily damaged. To live for millennia, and so explore the universe, a new vessel for human consciousness is required. AI provides the potential for that. After all, homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals, and the fact that we are more intelligent than other species does not lead us to wipe them out, especially those of us that are vegetarians. On the contrary, we have developed a more keen awareness of the need to protect them, and share the planet with them, which is a code we might well wish to embed in developing systems of AI.
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