Artificial intelligence taking all of our jobs was perhaps not the headline Rishi Sunak was hoping for at the end of the two-day, AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park. But once you invite Elon Musk onto the stage, you somewhat surrender your news cycle to his whims.
The fear of technology-driven unemployment is a well-trodden intellectual cul-de-sac. No lesser authority than John Maynard Keynes wrote about it in his delightfully titled 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren", which sounds like an email subject line my grandpa might have once sent me.
In it, Keynes predicted that technology would lead to mass job losses "due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses". It wasn't all bad news. Keynes also correctly predicted that living standards would be vastly higher in 100 years time. But his forecast that people would work only 15 hours a week by 2030, with the rest of their time being devoted to living "wisely, agreeably and well" was less accurate.
New technologies are certainly disruptive. See: war. But there are two compelling reasons why Keynes was wrong, with a hat tip to this paper from the Centre for Economic Policy Research that I read last year in the hope that I could one day rip it off for a newsletter.
First, technological change can raise the demand for labour by generating new jobs directly linked with the new technology. Added to that, productivity gains associated with the new technology can increase demand for labour in other tasks either in the same firm or industry.
And second, technology can boost the demand for labour in the guise of higher consumer demand. This happens thanks to lower production costs, lower prices and higher real wages.
Of course, technological change can be exceptionally painful for those who lose their jobs. Meanwhile, if unemployment occurs with any degree of geographical concentration, it can be politically damaging. See: the energy transition. Given that technological advances have (at least thus far) tended to focus on lower-skilled manufacturing, it further calls attention to the need for upskilling and reskilling.
Finally, Sunak has faced criticism for being 'out of touch' (one of the more tedious political attack lines) when he suggested that people should be more willing to give up regular pay and “be comfortable with failure” to start their own companies. Encouraging a more entrepreneurial mindset is hardly the gaffe of the century.
But it does rather add more weight to the theory that the prime minister would swap his nominal control over nuclear weapons and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council to be governor of a medium-sized US state. Because it occasionally feels as if Britain is something of a disappointment to the Stamford-educated Sunak. And I can sympathise.
On the way to work this week, as the wind blew my umbrella inside out and the rain filled my shoes up with water, it occurred to me that I have the legal right to live in Hawaii, San Francisco and even Denver, at a push. But here the two of us are, Sunak and me, slumming it in London for the love of the job.
In the comment pages, Tracey Emin reveals why it is that she cries every time she comes to New York. Rohan Silva says all of us in Britain should be standing up to anti-Semitism. While I've written about the rise of airport lounges, but really why exclusivity doesn't work without some people being left out.
And finally, it's not a Rickroll if it's an actual interview with Rick Astley. The Eighties pop star talks about his surprise renaissance as an internet meme and becoming a Smiths tribute singer.
