Crisis 2038: When AI really takes over jobs
Fiction has the unique power to introduce readers to complex concepts, distant locations, and alternate viewpoints – while still being accessible, memorable and light-hearted. This website is a humble attempt to bring together all my learnings from various works of fiction.
To begin this endeavour, a good book to talk about is Crisis: 2038: A Novel, by Gerald Huff. Like many other stories of its time, it explores the idea of artificial intelligence (AI) taking over the world. However, this book isn’t about some far-out, apocalyptic scenario. On the contrary, it describes an all-too-believable future, raising some important points about how society needs to take a look at its policies and decide whether they are still optimal in an increasingly tech-driven world.
Link to book: https://www.amazon.com/Crisis-2038-Novel-Gerald-Huff-ebook/dp/B07KN4B1L1/
As the book’s name suggests, it is set in the year 2038, at a time when people are losing their jobs to AI at an alarming rate. Society has reached a point where the number of new jobs created by the increased use of technology is negligible in comparison to the actual number of unemployed people looking for jobs. While technology has provided the potential for a much-improved quality of life, it has also heightened income inequality. Owners of AI-driven businesses are filthy rich, while the rest of the country struggles to fend for itself.
A turning point in the story occurs when a virtual-reality (VR) program goes viral. The program features a young woman named Sara who talks about her vision for the world. She maintains that technology is not the enemy, and that regulating the use of AI and other technology in business would be akin to taking two steps backwards. In her view, the better solution would be to give every citizen an unconditional basic income (UBI).
While met with some skepticism at first, the idea gains increasing popularity over the course of the book as various events unfold. The main arguments that Sara puts forth for UBI are: 1) it will ensure that people have enough money in the bank to pay for basic goods and services, thus keeping money circulating in the economy, and 2) it will ensure that people develop a higher risk appetite to start businesses of their own, and to perform the jobs that they are actually passionate about (this is an over-simplification for the sake of brevity, do read the book for a more nuanced discussion of this topic). She suggests that the funding of UBI can come from taxes paid by big businesses, as well as from redirecting funds from existing government-sponsored programmes for food security, affordable housing and so on (since with UBI, everyone will be above the poverty line anyway).
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Now, I’m no economist and I’m in no position to comment on whether unconditional basic income is a good idea or not! But if you’d like to educate yourself more about this debate, there are tons of great resources on the Internet. Scott Santens’ page is a good place to start if you’re looking to learn about arguments for UBI. If you’re looking to find arguments against UBI, this article on Forbes is a good starting point.
Here though, I’d like to touch upon some other themes in the book which really interested me:
Dignity by virtue of citizenship
Any remotely benevolent society has some concept of ‘dignity’ implicit in its laws - the idea that whoever you are, you are entitled to a basic level of humane treatment because you are a citizen. But in practice, reaching this ideal state is not so simple. Today, education, employment and financial security largely define a person’s ‘perceived’ dignity. In the book Crisis 2038, Sara suggests that since there are really not enough jobs to keep everyone continually employed, maybe it’s time to explicitly ensure that all citizens consider themselves worthy of dignity. Unconditional basic income is just one possible tool to meet this end goal.
One may argue that the above thinking might incentivize people not to work at all. But Sara points out that UBI doesn’t actually make anyone rich! If you think about it in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, UBI is only meant to make the first few rungs on the ladder easier to scale. Hence in Sara’s vision for the ideal world, work is not a means to earn food, shelter, or status – but rather, a way for humans to meet their most elusive need, that of self-actualization.
There aren’t just two sides to a story
At the start of the book, there are two distinct factions fighting against each other. One is the pro-tech group, which is of the opinion that those who are complaining about joblessness are simply 'lazy' and unwilling to work. The other faction is anti-tech, comprising capable people who have lost their jobs to robots. Like every other ideological war, this one has escalated rapidly over the years and an anti-tech terrorist group called LKC has come into existence. LKC has been busy creating their own technology with the sole purpose of disrupting the functioning of mainstream businesses.
It is ironic that the hyper-partisan nature of today's discourse doesn't really intensify debate, it actually weakens debate. It leads people to believe that there are only two sides to a story, with no room for a reconciliation of conflicting opinions, or an orthogonal perspective.
It is only after Sara (and her UBI recommendation) comes into the picture that people actually start to wonder whether the anti-tech group is fighting the wrong enemy. This sparks a passionate (and much-needed) conversation between politicians on different points on the Democrat-Republican spectrum, where they put their mutual animosity aside and jointly brainstorm policies that could lead to the betterment of society.
All the tech in the world, and there is still no remedy for fake news!
Sara visits multiple universities over the course of the book, where she fields all kinds of questions from people, and discusses her philosophies at length in each of these visits. As a reader, you might think that this makes the book repetitive. I did so too at first, until I realized that this might have been intentional!
Because, as it turns out, Sara’s lengthy speeches are reduced to a (false) one-liner. Somebody incorrectly claims that Sara is affiliated with Rezmat, a fictitious tech company that is known to be ruthless and unethical in its quest for profits. People begin believing that the only reason that Sara claims that AI isn’t the enemy is to ensure that Rezmat stays in business. Things soon escalate and Sara gets shot at a public event, leading to her tragic death which causes more unrest.
Think about it - the internet has the potential to democratize anything. Yet, the age old challenge of establishing trust on the internet limits its true potential even today. And while there is continuous innovation happening today in creating more airtight trust protocols, the fact still remains that human beings are the weakest links in any system. If we do manage to come up with a robust system that incentivizes everyone to act in the ‘right’ way, that might be humankind’s greatest achievement ever.
Conclusion
I would highly recommend reading this book irrespective of which side of the political spectrum you identify with. While the book falls a bit short in terms of character development and some of the finer aspects of storytelling, it provides plenty of food for thought in a very accessible manner.
Happy reading, and do stay safe!