Written by: Ben Spies-Butcher
Translated by: Heart of the Metaverse
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a hallmark technology of the era, but how it will ultimately shape our future remains a highly controversial issue.
For technological optimists, they view AI as a tool for improving life, believing it heralds a future of material abundance.
However, this outcome is far from guaranteed. Even if the technological potential of AI is realized, how will this 'abundance' be utilized?
In Australia's food economy, we can already see this contradiction on a smaller scale. According to Australian government data, the country wastes approximately 7.6 million tons of food each year, with an average waste of about 312 kilograms per person.
Meanwhile, 1 in 8 Australians faces food shortages, primarily due to not having enough money to purchase the food they need.
What does this indicate? It shows our inadequacy in fairly distributing the bountiful outcomes promised by the AI revolution.
AI could break existing economic models
As economist Lionel Robbins articulated when laying the foundations for modern market economics: economics studies the relationship between 'goals (what we want)' and 'scarce means with multiple uses (what we have)'.
The logic of market operation is considered 'allocating scarce resources to infinite demand.' Scarcity affects prices, i.e., the costs people are willing to pay for goods and services; while the expenditure demands for meeting basic needs force (most) people to earn money through work, simultaneously producing more goods and services.
The promise of AI to 'bring abundance and solve complex healthcare, engineering, and social problems' exists in irreconcilable contradiction with this market logic.
This is directly related to concerns that 'technology will lead to millions of workers losing their jobs.' If paid work is lost, how will people earn money? How will the market function?
Meeting our needs and desires
However, it is not only technology that leads to unemployment. A relatively unique feature of market economies is that even when resources seem abundant, it can still result in widespread demand not being met through unemployment or low wages.
As economist John Maynard Keynes revealed: recessions and depressions may be products of the market system itself; even when raw materials, factories, and labor are idle, many can still fall into poverty.
In Australia, the most recent economic downturn was not triggered by market failure, but stemmed from the public health crisis brought about by the pandemic. Yet, this crisis has revealed economic challenges faced by 'technology-driven abundance' and a potential solution.
At that time, the government raised subsidy amounts, eliminated work tests, relaxed economic status surveys, etc., which significantly alleviated poverty and food shortages even as economic production capacity declined.
Many countries around the world have also implemented similar policies, with over 200 countries introducing cash payment measures. This practice during the pandemic has further propelled calls for 'combining technological advancement with universal basic income.'
The Australian Universal Basic Income Lab is focusing on this as a research priority, established jointly by Macquarie University, the University of Sydney, and the Australian National University.
If everyone could receive a guaranteed income sufficient to cover basic needs, the market economy might smoothly transition, and the dividends brought by technology could be more widely shared.
Is it welfare or an earned share?
When discussing universal basic income, we must clarify its definition; certain versions of universal basic income schemes could still lead to significant wealth inequality.
My colleague Elise Klein from the Australian Universal Basic Income Lab and Stanford University professor James Ferguson argue that universal basic income should not be designed as 'welfare,' but rather as a 'share earned.'
They believe that the wealth created through technological advancement and social collaboration is the result of collective human labor and should be equally enjoyed by all as a fundamental human right, just as we view a country's natural resources as the collective property of its citizens.
The debate over universal basic income predates the current issues brought about by AI. Similar concerns arose in early 20th-century Britain: at that time, industrialization and automation spurred economic growth but did not eliminate poverty, instead threatening employment.
Earlier, the Luddites attempted to destroy the new machines that were used to suppress wages. Market competition may spur innovative forces, but it also exhibits extreme imbalance in distributing the risks and rewards of technological change.
Universal Basic Services
In addition to resisting AI, another solution is to change the socioeconomic system that 'distributes AI dividends.' British writer Aaron Bastani proposed a radical vision of 'fully automated luxury communism.'
He welcomes technological progress, believing it should bring more leisure time while improving living standards. This vision is a radical version of the 'moderate goals' articulated in the book (Abundance) favored by the recent Labour government.
Bastani's preferred solution is not universal basic income but rather universal basic services.
Instead of giving people money to buy the things they need, why not provide essentials directly—for example, free healthcare, care services, transportation, education, energy, and so on?
Of course, this means changing the way AI and other technologies are applied—essentially 'socializing' their use to ensure that technology meets collective needs.
Utopia is not inevitable
Proposals for universal basic income or universal basic services indicate that, even from an optimistic perspective, AI itself is unlikely to bring about utopia.
On the contrary, as Peter Frase articulated: the confluence of technological advancement and ecological collapse may give rise to entirely different futures, with this difference reflected not only in our collective productive capacity but also in how we politically determine 'who gets what' and 'under what conditions.'
A technology company run by billionaires wields enormous power, which may herald a form of 'technofeudalism' closer to what former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis described, namely, control over technology and online platforms that gives rise to a new authoritarianism.
Waiting for the 'rebirth' of technology will cause us to miss the real possibilities of the present. We already have enough food to feed everyone and know how to eliminate poverty. These do not require AI to inform us.