There are
quite a few optimistic economists out there who convinced themselves
that, even though the Industrial Revolution, which was responsible for the unprecedented economic development of the United States since the 19th century, is pretty much over, there is no need to panic and envision impending doom. According to them, we are yet to pull through. Do you know what will save us? Artificial intelligence and 3D printing, i.e. fucking robots and compressed plastic powder.
Ok, let's leave the 3D printing alone for now. I'm quite impressed with the replication capabilities of the so-called printers: the manufacturing of complex forms, moving parts and all directly from scanned or modeled images looks like magic; and I do think that this innovation will revolutionize toy-making and change sculpture forever. However, because the "printing" powder recipes are kept secret, I cannot really say anything about the quality and/or safety of the household items, tools, auto parts, etc. made this way. I hear the plastic guns shoot people dead pretty well, but what else is new?
I am more curious about the robotized future though. From the vantage point of the economists in question, 65% of American employees are engaged in tasks that they classify as "information processing" (sounds pretty arbitrary to me, but let's go with it) and these poor "dehumanized" worker bees will be replaced with super-efficient highly intelligent machines, who never get depressed because information is what they do. And it doesn't matter that the damn toasters will never be able to look at a plant and pick an appropriate tool to trim it (it's just something that cannot be programmed).
In case you are wondering, the other 35% will be occupied in professions and functions that require superior intelligence and talent: executive management (you wouldn't believe how many executive dumbasses I know, but whatever!), strategic planning, creative work, and of course, gardening (on account of the robots' deficiencies mentioned above).
Seriously though, I hope you agree with me that defining ALL tasks performed by office employees as "information processing" essentially turns these people into some sort of robots already, which creates an illusion that replacing imperfect human tools with slick intelligent machines is an efficient, easy, and necessary process. And yes, some of the office routines can be tedious and dehumanizing. Yet, the reality is that only in large companies, marked by narrow specialization, standardization, and redundancy, work can be likened to the repetitive conveyor operations. Everywhere else people multitask!
Ever since my doctoral studies of economics (many year ago), I had a problem with the pervasive tendency of theoretical generalization; with the application of the macroeconomic approach to microeconomic systems. Again, maybe such abstractions are somewhat pertinent to giant enterprises, but you and I know that every small business operates differently - none of them will fit into an artificially constructed etalon. It scares me to think that these pseudo-scientists possibly envision the future without any entrepreneurship at all - just fucking GMs, GEs, Microsofts, Starbucks, Smithfields, Apples, Googles, COSTCOs, and Carl's Jr. (Wait a minute, doesn't this ring a pretty loud bell?)
But what if this nightmare doesn't come true? (Call me a fucking optimist!) Imagine that 20 years from now small businesses still exist, but now they can be outfitted with highly efficient (and affordable!) intelligent machines available to step in as your trusted office workers. Let's conduct a mental experiment and see how a robot will deal with three (could've been 100) straightforward issues customarily handled by one of my most reliable and teachable subordinates of all time (I call her "my Paige"). In other words, let's see if a robot can really replace my Paige.
#1. A commercial customer has a $300K credit line. The total of the customer's open invoices is $265K. A $51K order for the product your company really needs to move is transmitted for the robot's credit approval. Of course, a discretionary flexibility is programmed into the algorithm (robot designers are not stupid) - it's 5% above the limit (remember, standardization is unavoidable with machines), making the total allowable credit exposure $315k. But approving the order would exceed it by a mere $1,000. The robot rejects it, denying its employer an opportunity to move the product, increase the revenue, make a nice profit. In addition, the relationship with a long-time customer is at jeopardy over a thousand bucks; and the salesperson is mad because he lost his commissions. And what are you going to do? Fire the robot? It cost the company a fucking mint!
#2. The operations department (also robots) needs to make sufficient room in the storage facility to accommodate the upcoming delivery of 5000 mt of a product from overseas. They transmit a message to Sales to start pushing the shit faster. Sales plea and beg customers to take as much product as they can - discounts and all kinds of other tokens of gratitude are flowing. One customer says that he can take a delivery on September 29th, but he doesn't want the inventory on his books just yet and the invoices must be dated October 14th (the "I do something for you, you do something for me" principle). This information is relayed to my accounting robot. It's perplexed: It's programmed to record sales according to the order terms; the terms in this case are Delivered; the proof of delivery transmitted into his system by the trucking branch states September 29th; yet, somebody is overriding his algorithm and forces the wrong date! SCREECH! SYSTEM FAILURE!
#3. The payments-to-suppliers program kicks in. The robot tallies all invoices that need to be paid - the total is $3.3M. Now, funds-sufficiency program kicks in: there is only $300K available on the account and the robot transmits a funding request to the CFO's all-in-one communication device installed into her left ear's diamond stud. The borrowing and investing functions are still done by the human CFO, because the risk of some crafty thief hacking into a fucking toaster is, as you can imagine, pretty high. The problem is that the CFO is in London dining with a Financial Director of a company her employer targeted for acquisition. She is trying to pump the stiff for some information beyond the official reports, and she just got him talking, and there is no way she can lose this opportunity on account of some payments. But the robot must do his job - he must be timely, the payments must be made. Yet, he sees that, if he actually makes the payments, the account will be overdrafted by $3 million. The conflicting algorithms are tearing the machine apart, literally - it short-circuits.
What? Are you telling me that the economists don't have these tasks in mind; that these are semi-managerial-somewhat-analytical duties? Guess what, Mr. Big-Shot-Futurologist? That's what's going on in small businesses with flat structures: Every sector of the value chain is manned by one executive/manager and a handful of her direct reports aka the "the information processors." No middle management. You cannot possibly reassign these minute but essential issues to CFO's and Controllers - that's just too expensive in terms of the compensation, wasteful in terms of the time taken away from more strategic obligations, and demeaning in terms of the moral incentives. And if I have to buy robots AND keep my subordinates for the semi-managerial-somewhat-analytical work, what kind of progress is that?
According to the US Census data, there are over 6 million companies in this country with less than 100 employees. Obviously, they are too small to see from the top of the theoretical mountain. So, in articles for academic magazines and thick manuscripts for Wiley publications, their diverse office workers first get bundled together with the narrow-niched redundant zombies of large bureaucracies, and then replaced by robots in one sweep of a Montblanc pen.
Just for argument's sake let's get back for a second to the scary possibility: The economists, politicians , and the big businesses paying for them actually erase small companies from the national map. The intellectual flexibility is ignored in the interest of standardization, and all of the "information processors" in the remaining giant conglomerates are replaced by machines. What kind of plans do the movers and shakers have for these 65% of American workers? How about their children, lately multiplying at the three-per-family rate? Considering the dramatically falling IQs of the general population, it's unlikely that they will be viable candidates for high-level managerial or creative work. So, how is the robotization going to make the whole nation wealthier in the same way the Industrial Revolution did? I see a more polarized society with hordes of people pushed below the poverty level.
But the biggest question I have for the big-time big-picture economists is: Where the fuck are you going to get the energy to power all those robots and their managing network servers?