IN 1965, Dr George E Moore observed that semiconductor companies could double the number of discrete components on a square inch of silicon every
12 months. Today the length of time has changed to between 18 and 24 months. However, we have continued to see near- exponential growth in what is called Moore’s Law.
In 1974, the TMS 1000 microprocessor had a transistor count of 8000. In 2014, when Scotland had its independence referendum, the 18-core Xeon Haswell-ES microprocessor had a transistor count of 5,560,000,000. In 2017, it then jumped to a transistor count of 19,200,000,000. The components on today’s microprocessors are now on the nanoscale – a scale so tiny that you can’t even see individual elements using a powerful light microscope. In 2015, IBM announced a chip with seven nanometre features. By comparison, a helical strand of DNA is 2.5 nanometres in diameter.
These amazing technological advances have increased our raw computing power. New technologies are emerging and becoming cheaper, smaller and more powerful.
READ MORE: This is how Scotland can cope with the rise of automation
This is beginning to have a profound effect on the economy. As technology and mass production advance, the opportunity for human work is decreasing. We are reaching a stage where job creation will be outpaced by the rate in which automation makes jobs obsolete.
When you increase the computing power of technology, the applications continue to expand. When we talk about transistors and automation, what we are really talking about is artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, additive manufacturing (3D printing), small satellites, etc.
These applications are improving how we live, but they are also improving how we manufacture goods, how we provide services, how we travel and how we communicate. When we make these improvements, we increase the efficiency of our work process, but we do that by removing what is inefficient. In a cold, inhuman manner, we remove people from these processes because we can produce machines that can do their jobs better than they can.
One of the challenges we face with automation is the inequality it can produce. With increased efficiency, the owners of technology see increased profitability. This is because the share of national income allocated to labour is decreased.
In the manufacturing sector, for instance, machines increase the efficiency in the manufacturing process as operating costs decrease, allowing profits to increase. Because the employees have been replaced by machines, the share of profits dedicated to wages is decreased. There are no employees to pay.
Society and technology are interlinked. Society creates the boundaries for technological paradigms, the technology we use and how we use it, to be sustained. However, technological revolutions, a dramatic change to our technological paradigm, drive society in creating those boundaries. Technology and society both drive each other, yet both limit each other.
We are heading towards a technological tipping point, the point where we reach a technological revolution. Because of the market forces which society implements, this technological revolution is to be met with mass job losses on a global scale. In Scotland’s case, we expect at least 30% of our jobs to be lost by 2030.
This is unsustainable. Society needs to adapt to these changes so that we can avoid the effects of automation, such as job losses. We need to build the institutions that favour the diffusion of technology throughout the economy. That requires the society to change from the current neoliberal ecosystem towards one which understands the crucial role the state plays in the foundations of an economy.
If we are to deliver an economy which is sustainable and inclusive of both people and technology, then we must focus on how we rebalance away from the current neoliberal model towards an investment-led growth model. We must understand growth as a reward for effective innovation without limiting our marketplace to the decision between people or machines. We can live in a world where the benefits of machines are felt by all people in our society; we just need to build the institutions which allow that.
In the words of the late Professor Stephen Hawking; “Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.”
Craig Berry is an electrical engineer and independent researcher for Common Weal
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