One of the most effective prisms through which to understand how people and societies have changed since the Palaeolithic to the Anthropocene is to examine the relationship between tools and people. Simply put, humans make machines and machines, in turn, shape them. The last few centuries — a temporal blip in the species’ history — have witnessed increasing degrees of abstraction. Numbers, the written word, money (increasingly less tangible) and now AI, are not just technologies. They shape what and who societies value. With machines able to remember and analyse information, and predict outcomes, a new set of values is in the offing. And for all the anxiety around AI, this change might not be all bad.
Demis Hassabis, Nobel laureate and CEO and co-founder of Google DeepMind, said that while AI and robotics may be able to replace doctors, especially in diagnosis, it will likely be unable to replace nurses. His statement flags a broader possibility: Professions based on knowledge and abstract skills could become increasingly obsolete, and tangible, emotional labour more valuable. AI will not be refilling the gas on the AC compressor any time soon. It will not comfort an ageing relative in a meaningful way, nor make sure that a child is loved when both parents are at work. In essence, the jobs that are often seen as less skilled today could well become the most valuable.
Hierarchies of labour have been papered over in the name of what the market, guided by an ethereal, invisible hand, demands. Now, as the most lucrative professions of today – doctors, investment bankers, software engineers, lawyers — face an impending existential crisis, perhaps it’s time to value others. Not just economically, but socially. Teachers, nurses, nannies — those who cook in homes and raise other people’s children, those whose skills keep homes functioning — AI might create a new elite. It’s about time.
