AT THE Singapore Changi Airport, I was waiting for my connecting flight to Brisbane, Australia. I entered one of the restaurants for a meal. As I waited for my order to be served, I looked around. My attention was grabbed by a service robot which was given the name Wendy. Wendy was moving around and collecting used dishes from the tables. As she did her work, she asked people to keep the way clear for her.
This is not one of the most sophisticated uses of robots for serving humans. The other day I was watching a video about a robot chef in Japan who can cook for you just like a human chef. Whether the food is delicious is a question asked but not answered. The taste of the food cooked by humans and robots is likely to vary. It varies between human chefs as well. When I cook something at home, only I can eat it. I can鈥檛 serve it to our children who love their mother鈥檚 cooking.
At the university in Australia where I work, there is a robot vendor who will make chatime drink for you. One of our school-going children loves to see the measured arm movements of the machine at work. However, she said that the taste of the same drink was better at a different store on campus where it is made by humans.听
Returning to Wendy at the airport, I marvelled at the human intelligence behind the creation of AI-based tools for catering to human needs. At the same time, I found my poor intelligence leading me in a different direction. I was reminded that Wendy had taken the job of a human waiter/waitress. We can justify such technological replacement of human workers in many ways. Why should people do dirty jobs such as cleaning when machines can do it for them? We may also argue that the Wendys are more efficient than human service providers. Cost saving is the incontrovertible argument. Wendy does not demand a salary. There are no questions of pensions, annual leave, or pay rises in her appointment. The owner of the restaurant will have a higher profit margin. Who can deny that profit is the legitimate goal of every capitalist endeavour?
However, it is hunger for higher profit which often kills human workers鈥� jobs. A human鈥檚 job is not just a job. It鈥檚 a source of living, socialisation, livelihood, and dignity. Often, a whole family of children and elderly people depends on the income from a person鈥檚 employment. It sustains a family, children鈥檚 education, their future, etc.
As I thought along this non-neoliberal line, I was taken back to my primary school days in a small, rural town in Bangladesh. I went to a donor-funded residential school which fed, sheltered, and educated impoverished kids in the community. The NGO that ran the school was kind of a local icon in the sub-district in those days. The large establishment had residences for over 1000 children, a hospital, a school, recreational facilities, and offices of administration. However, the institutional boundary was never walled with bricks or concrete. Instead, it had a fence made of bamboo which had to be replaced almost every year.
As a resident child in this institution, I once shared my curiosity with one of my schoolteachers: Why don鈥檛 they have a brick wall which can last many years? My teacher told me that redoing the fence cost a lot of money, but the authorities would like to keep it that way. Making a new fence creates jobs for poor people in the community. A permanent wall would take away those employment opportunities. Those people needed jobs, even if it was not a permanent solution to their unemployment.
These two examples taken from two different places and times point to two different economic orientations, as noted by the US economist Richard Wolff. One is an economy serving people, and the other is people serving the economy.
Wolff developed this taxonomy of economies based on the conditions of railways in China and the USA. If you go to China, you will be impressed by the huge network of high-speed rail. I experienced it early this year when I spent a week in Shanghai. You can travel from one corner of the country to another fast and easily. However, the USA has failed to develop such a network despite being the number one economy in the world. It does have the technology to do it, if it so wanted. The rail network is not profitable in China, Wolff says. But it serves people. This is the economy for people. The USA will probably never have such a network because it does not care about serving people the same way. As Wolff notes, it wants people to serve the economy instead, which basically means serving fat capitalists.
We may be reminded of the jobs that were cut when Donald Trump took office for the second term as the US president. How can one talk about 鈥楢merica First鈥� and cut Americans鈥� jobs at the same time? Maybe the answer is it鈥檚 only America 鈥� not Americans 鈥� first. America belongs to those capital-mongering billionaires. It does not care much about average Americans and their struggles for survival.
Job replacement due to AI advancements is probably one of the most common concerns in the AI era. I asked ChatGPT about the number of jobs to be lost to such advancements in the next few years. By referring to a report by McKinsey Global Institute, it said that between 75 million and 375 million workers may need to change jobs by 2030. This is only an estimate. Getting to the accurate number will be hard for many reasons. The key sectors of job loss as noted by ChatGPT are manufacturing, transport and logistics, retail, administrative support, customer service, finance and accounting, healthcare and education. As someone working in the field of education, I am reminded of the risk of my job loss. What other jobs can I do if my employer finds a more efficient intellectual labourer in the machine?
There is no denying that new jobs will be created in AI-related and other sectors. However, the volume of job loss is likely to be much bigger than gain. When there is no limit to profit-making, it can鈥檛 be otherwise. We will have to wait to see the unemployment situation globally and its social and economic fallouts.
Should we stop technological innovations such as AI? Should entrepreneurs stop recruiting robots and other AI-powered tools? The answers are no in both cases. However, if we ask, 鈥楽hould technology or innovation or capitalism be pursued at the cost of humanity?鈥�, the answer may be complex and contested.
When we were studying American literature as part of our MA programme at the University of Dhaka, we read Saul Bellow鈥檚 short novel titled Seize the Day. The protagonist, Tommy, was kicked out of his travelling salesman job because he lost his efficiency with age. His passionate outcry to his employer over his job loss can be heard in the AI era. He said that he couldn鈥檛 be treated like an orange that would be thrown away after the meat had been eaten by the employer.
The Tommies have become redundant and disposable, as there are technological alternatives in the AI era. It鈥檚 an economy that must be served by people 鈥� previously by their jobs, and now by their joblessness.
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Obaidul Hamid is an associate professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. He researches language, education, and society in the developing world. He is a co-editor of Current Issues in Language Planning.