Whether we like it or not, the future is fast approaching, and a new era of digital innovation and technological disruption is already here. Or more accurately, the future of work is already here. So yes, the robots are coming. But what will be the broad impacts of this transformation?
Today we are at a crossroads. Advances in automation and AI (artificial intelligence) could bring to fruition our longstanding vision of the technological utopia we have been dreaming up for decades. This is one in which UBIs exist, where we are no longer relegated to the menial, disempowering work that seems to define the everyday lives of many, a utopia in which citizens have the time to pursue more creative and fulfilling endeavours. However, these advances in AI development also hold the potential to bring about technological dystopia and social disarray. One in which tech monopolies reign as they reap the benefits of mechanisation, and job security becomes increasingly precarious as workers are displaced by automation. Such a dystopia would be
defined by high unemployment, increased financial inequality, the disruption of economies, social upheaval, and an eroded social fabric. With the working class already disproportionality affected by worker displacement, the implications of AI integration into the marketplace begin to feel increasingly ominous. So can we as a society move forward and adapt to the integration of AI without some sort of a government program or UBI? Or will the ability of automation to fuel a better society (like many other well-intentioned innovations) be warped and thwarted by financial agenda?
