The impact of robotics on the economy.

For years, robots in the industry have been automating simple tasks. So far, this has not led to higher unemployment, but the argument is that this is about to change.

The additional prosperity will therefore end up with a few: the owners and managers of (large) companies. Initially, the gap between rich and poor will widen further. First, the lower-educated will lose their jobs, and there will be no replacements for them. In the Netherlands, they will end up in the unemployment and social assistance safety net. In other countries like the USA, this will lead to bitter poverty much faster. It is not difficult to imagine that this could lead to enormous dissatisfaction and perhaps even revolutions. Hopefully, that is just an interim period during which policymakers make adjustments so that everyone can benefit from increased prosperity. Drafting and implementing effective policy is crucial to shaping this transition.

But ultimately, this development cannot be stopped, simply because it is possible and because a great deal of money and power can be achieved through AI and robotization.

Redistribution of wealth

If, eventually, even the highly educated are forced into unemployment by artificial intelligence, the government will be forced to intervene. This can be done by redistributing wealth between the (by then) super-rich and the unemployed. Because national governments will no longer have sufficient influence over multinationals, this will require cooperation. Let us assume the best and hope that people manage to achieve this. We would then live with a great deal of freedom, leisure time, and prosperity until the moment the last job is replaced by smarter robots. At that moment, or just before, the economy as we know it will disappear and everything will be free. After all, robots make everything, including the extraction of raw materials, and because they do not demand anything in return, they do so at no cost, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The prices of products and services will therefore drop further and further until they eventually reach zero.

And then what?

The economy has disappeared; being rich no longer has any purpose because everything is free.

Will a shadow economy emerge, like the one that currently exists between the underworld and the upper world, or will we try to distinguish ourselves in other ways? At the moment, I do not know; what I do know is that the above scenario is real and that we must be prepared for both the period between now and the disappearance of the economy, as well as the period thereafter.

But if we handle it well, we can achieve exactly what we have always wanted: more leisure time and enough income to lead a beautiful and happy life. That thought makes it worth continuing to invest in innovation.

Recently, this economist gave his vision on what must and will happen when AI is more efficient than humans in many areas.