[D66] Review: Robert Skidelsky Says More…

[René Oudeweg]

(Het techgeloof is tanende...)

drdawoodmamoon.substack.com
Review: Robert Skidelsky Says More…
Dr Dawood Mamoon
19–24 minutes

This week in Say More, Project Syndicate talks with Robert Skidelsky, a 
member of the British House of Lords and Professor Emeritus of Political 
Economy at Warwick University.

Project Syndicate: Last year, you lamented the reversion of contemporary 
policy discussions to “the age-old standoff between market-based 
supply-side economics and a supply-side approach rooted in industrial 
policy,” because it leaves out a Keynesian focus on the “insufficiency 
of demand.” How would such a focus alter policymakers’ approach to key 
issues like climate change and energy security? For example, how could 
the US advance the Inflation Reduction Act’s stated goals using a 
Keynesian approach?

Robert Skidelsky: This is a really difficult opener! My main issue with 
the contemporary policy discussion is that it disregards Keynes’ insight 
that capitalist economies suffer from a chronic deficiency of aggregate 
demand. In other words, it assumes that economies have an in-built 
tendency toward full employment. But if that were true, there would be 
no case for expansionary fiscal policy. The IRA – which includes $800 
billion in new spending and tax breaks to accelerate the deployment of 
clean-energy technologies – had to be dressed up as “modern supply-side 
policy,” aimed at reducing inflation by lowering energy costs. But 
fiscal expansion based on a model that denies the need for it is bound 
to come to grief, as markets push for a return to sound finance and 
sound money. In the UK, Labour has had to abandon its pledge to spend an 
extra £28 billion ($35 billion) per year on green energy, because it 
couldn’t answer the question, “Where is the money coming from?”

The link between green investment and what UK Shadow Chancellor of the 
Exchequer Rachel Reeve calls “securonomics” is tenuous. To the extent 
that green investment at home replaces energy imports, it can reduce 
supply-chain vulnerabilities. But this argument applies to any 
“essential” import, from food to pharmaceuticals to computer software. 
Where does the quest for national self-sufficiency end? In any case, 
national self-sufficiency is no safeguard against domestic terrorism.

The truth is that the best way to secure supply chains is by ensuring a 
peaceful global environment. Establish the conditions of peace, and 
there will be no need for securonomics.

Dawood Mamoon: Robert Skidelsky has very eloquently answered the 
question based on facts that challenge wisdom and assumptions behind 
Inflation Reduction Act, implicitly suggesting that wisdom behind 
international trade and globalization still holds true and unlike the 
perception of the populations in UK or US, globalization would benefit 
and makes far more economic sense than domestic specialization by 
focusing on supply side economics of industrial policy. In other words 
the fact is if we really undertake a nation wide survey in Great Britain 
for example, majority population is oblivious to the fact that there is 
a need for green technologies. For them it is still important and that 
holds true for all consumer products and thereby demand side economics 
that they get the best products and services at the cheapest price as of 
today. British common man is least bothered about how prices would work 
one year later or longer. While at the same time it is also interesting 
to note that the British common man has greatly blamed globalization for 
disrupting local demand for labor and blame high levels of unemployment 
on more integration with the world and specifically European Union. That 
is the premise for a successful deal on BRIXIT. While domestic terrorism 
may mean that there is serious disruptions in both demand side economics 
(consumer welfare) and supply side economics (high levels of 
unemployment of labor with basic skills) and thus Great Britain is more 
prone to civil unrest and may as well be exposed to domestic terrorism 
as it has been witnessed in Ireland. However it should also be mentioned 
that self sufficiency is also very important. In other words, there 
needs to be an equilibrium. Globalization is still a great way to 
address inefficiencies in the local economy. However, some level of self 
sufficiency is needed to continue the process of innovation and creative 
technology up-gradation. While at the same time, a tangible short term 
plan is needed to upgrade the skills of local populations. Yes 
globalization and accession to EU has taken away relatively unskilled 
jobs away from British citizens and to labor representing Eastern 
Europe. Thereby to address the issue to not only create more jobs but 
sufficiently addressing demand side economics where there is a robust 
consumer market, abandoning globalization is not wise. For example new 
destinations for international trade needs to be identified and Common 
Wealth countries may be a great source to find trading partners where 
British government can develop some of the supply chains there. What I 
am suggesting is that globalization can as well be directed and well 
planned and that refers to regional trading agreements or preferential 
trade blocks where developing closer trade relation with EU by making 
labor movements freer between EU and European Union may have lead to 
BRIXIT and that should not mean that Great Britain needs to abandon 
international trade. For supply side efficiencies that are the hall mark 
of international trade and outsourcing, Common Wealth countries and 
especially that are developing countries may benefit British economy and 
both consumers and producers if industrial supply chains are developed 
in those countries that would reduce the costs of production 
domestically. While at the same time by investing in new and green 
technologies both domestically and in Common Wealth countries in Asia 
and Africa, one may not only achieve economies of scale but lead to more 
peaceful global outcomes. For example, If Great Britain develops more 
integrated technology supply chains in Pakistan and India, it would have 
far greater dividend for peace not only in South Asia but across the 
globe because China is also a geographically proximate nation to India 
and Pakistan while we know that China has developed its technological 
supply chains in East Asia. Inflation Reduction Act specifically 
addresses the problem of jobs domestically while ignoring demand side 
economics and implicitly assumes that green products while they are 
being developed would create no distortion for consumer markets for the 
time being while the future of green technologies are not at all 
definite as new age of AI is coming through within few years yet greatly 
disturbing both labor markets and consumer markets.

PS: You believe that generative artificial intelligence poses serious 
risks to humanity, from exacerbating inequality to infringing on civil 
liberties. Your new book is called The Machine Age: An Idea, a History, 
a Warning. How would you sum up the warning you are trying to convey?

RS: The risk is threefold.

First, AI renders a growing share of human workers redundant. If 
computers can do most types of work more efficiently than humans, what 
is left for humans to do? The threat of redundancy, which machines 
always raise, has grown exponentially, as AI has made inroads into 
cognitive work. Rising inequality and proliferating mental-health 
problems are the natural consequence of growing uselessness.

Second, AI poses a threat to human freedom. Governments and businesses 
have always spied on their subjects, in order to control them better or 
make more money out of them. Digital surveillance has made such spying 
easier and more comprehensive than ever. This carries risks beyond loss 
of freedom and privacy, as demonstrated by the recent Post Office 
scandal in the UK: hundreds of sub-postmasters were wrongfully accused 
of stealing money after faulty accounting software showed discrepancies 
in the Post Office’s finances. The old wisdom – often attributed to 
Thomas Jefferson – that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance” has 
never been more apposite.

Third, the uncontrolled advance of AI could lead to our extinction as a 
species. Just as massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other 
natural disasters threaten our survival, so do anthropogenic, largely 
technology-driven forces like nuclear proliferation and global warming. 
AI can compound the threat these forces represent.

Dawood Mamoon: The surveillance future is the biggest risk for mental 
health at work. It may lead to manipulation of labor and would be 
infringement to basic tenets of human rights. It would also be 
detrimental to creativity at work and would lead to labor preferences to 
only make them available for self work. Surveillance and Spying of labor 
is an old concept and it is more closely associated with Communist ways 
of governance where labor is mechanized. In a free world, surveillance 
through AI would lead to even more drastic and negative outcomes for 
worker inefficiencies that are usually associated with Communist 
regimes. Team work that is the hall mark of any productive firm would 
not take place at all to create innovative and creative solutions both 
in industry and services sectors.

PS: The idea for The Machine Age, you explain, arose partly from a short 
essay by John Maynard Keynes, in which he “predicted that his putative 
grandchildren would have to work only three hours a day,” enabling them 
to live a life of greater leisure. But whereas “Keynes treated work 
purely as a cost,” and “economic theory treats all work as compelled,” 
work is also a source of meaning. So, as you noted over a decade ago, a 
future of more leisure will require “a revolution in social thinking.” 
Where should such a revolution start?

RS: Keynes understood perfectly well that work was not simply the “cost” 
of living, but the Industrial Revolution collapsed labor and work – 
previously treated as two distinct concepts – into one category: labor. 
This gave rise to the economic doctrine that most of us work only 
because we have to, and would be much happier engaging in nothing but 
leisure.

The ancient Greeks had a surer grasp of the nature of work, 
distinguishing between negotium (working because one has to earn money 
to live) and otium (self-realization through work). The first step 
toward recovering the idea of otium would be to reject Benjamin 
Franklin’s dictum that “time is money.”

Dawood Mamoon: Great question by PS and even a greater and ingenious 
answer by Robert Skidelsky. However, RS has remained in the premise of 
work as defined in economics and related it with time spent on it. I 
would not only discuss work but also leisure. First work and productive 
work that is Negotium. Negotium is a work that also brings out your 
physical strengths, would greatly enhance your productivity and the 
productivity of the firm. Most of this kind of work also uses cognitive 
skills at the maximum. For example, a worker and a supervisor in an Oil 
Rig uses both Otium and Negotium and that is why they draw higher 
salaries. I was in Virginia and was a scholar at George Mason University 
representing Lahore and Pakistan based University namely University of 
Management and Technology (UMT) and dully funded by US department of 
State through their learned and most sincere representative who was then 
US Ambassador to Pakistan. At George Mason, I asked why there are mostly 
female students enrolled in different degree programs of the university. 
Well I got to know from George Mason Management that most of the 
American Males opt for technical education to become plumbers and 
technicians for example and simply because they draw much higher 
salaries than university graduates do in US. Now we know that the 
technicians and plumbers use both Otium and Negotium, and later more so, 
as the nature of work demands both physical and cognitive expertise. The 
pure form of Otium is mostly valid for work routines with traditional 
tools or ways of labor that use ancient tools both in agriculture and 
industry. For example Masonry in construction work may be pure form of 
Otium in developing countries. All the work routines either in Oil Rigs 
or doing plumbing also comes with far more time to spend on leisure.

However one may need to understand what is leisure in 21st century. It 
is not doing nothing. Anything can be leisure. For example Otium can be 
leisure if you are going to the gym and doing heavy weight lifting every 
day and building a ripped physique. Anyone who goes to the gym is mostly 
because the time is always considered as leisure and all that adrenaline 
associated with it. It can as well be a profession as true for 
professional body builders. Similarly doing any kind of sports need more 
physical work but as far as it is sports it is not Otium but it is 
leisure. Then leisure is also defined as merely talking with others or 
allocating time for entertainment. This is the most common form of 
leisure when you go to a sports center or stadium where professional 
sports men and women exert full cognitive and physical skills and 
thereby entertain public with their mastery. Other forms of leisure that 
adults indulge into has a lot to do with sex and sexual appeal. Enjoying 
Music, reading and watching romantic plays, or just be in the company of 
same or opposite sex can all be leisure and it is multi trillion dollar 
industry as more and more people are associated with negotium.

In other words, every one is entertaining every one else. You have to 
just match the demand and supply of leisure market. Leisure market has a 
far greater role for creativity and innovation. Writers, Musicians, 
Athletes, Digital Media, and even politics can be leisure and form the 
entertainment and gossip material. In other words every thing is work 
and every thing is leisure if we are talking about Negotium.

BY THE WAY…

PS: If automation is to enable humans to enjoy more leisure, the gains 
must be distributed fairly. In an economy where, as you put it in The 
Machine Age, “the means of production are largely privately owned,” how 
can policymakers ensure that the gains of productivity-enhancing 
technologies like generative AI are “shared sufficiently widely”?

RS: The quick answer is to tax the wealthy sufficiently to provide a 
universal basic income, which is not tied to labor. Regard everyone – 
not just the rentier – as having the right to an “unearned” income. The 
efficiency gains brought about by machinery make this possible; it is 
for politics to find a way to “spread the bread evenly on the butter.”

Dawood Mamoon: Well the above statement is only true if we consider that 
there is significant labor that would be unemployed. Since it is 
assuming that a future would come and in few years time that is when AI 
would dominate every production process, then we are talking about an 
entirely new world with new labor markets and consumer markets and most 
of that world would exist digitally. There would be many sub digital 
worlds and sub digital markets. Even AI would be part of the digital 
markets much like today when every one starts chess by playing it with 
the computer. It would all depend on human creativity to create labor 
relevant digital worlds where Negotium is utilized in its best form. 
Much like Elon Musk, even the billionaires would work for leisure to be 
an equal participants of Negotium. Every one would be skilled and 
educated and savvy in using internet of things. There would be millions 
of digital communities. Nevertheless, it is unlike the movie MATRIX 
because real world and physical activity is key part of evolution and 
humans cannot do without it. There would be far greater variety of 
consumer markets. Every one would be expected to show creativity and 
innovation. It is like few hundred years ago no one could ever thought 
of driving a car or flying a plane. Mostly every one drives a car in US 
and Europe and many more know how to fly a plane. Thereby every one 
would be a programmer. There is a possibility that time wouldn't be 
money but also money wouldn't be money or would only be a good valuation 
of cost. New economics would be practiced both at macro and micro level. 
Yes it would all be depending on how you define leisure and Negotium. 
Otium would simply be non existent. All this is true only if we can 
first achieve global peace and no other person can make a better 
argument than Robert Skidelsky in his opener.

PS: “If we are to outsource more and more of the tasks of life to ever 
more efficient machines,” you write in your book, “it is important to 
make sure that their preferences are consistent with those of humans.” 
But while that may require “reserving moral choices exclusively for 
humans,” could our growing reliance on machines produce a breed of moral 
idiots with diminished capacity to make such choices?

RS: This is a vital point. The standard mantra is that the smarter the 
machine, the smarter its human controller will need to be. This explains 
the demand for continuous “upskilling”: we must be able to keep up with 
machines. But I have much sympathy for the contrary proposition: the 
smarter the machine, the dumber its users will need to be, so as not to 
throw human spanners into the mechanical works. Only moral idiots will 
accept the infallibility of algorithmic judgments.

Dawood Mamoon: The above statement is only true if we consider that 
leisure and work are two different things or in other words it is the 
immediate future where still Otium exists. Yes just consumers of AI may 
also mean no physical work and to be correct I should use no Physical 
and cognitive exertion. That is not a true statement. Even kids playing 
video games are now earning a lot of money. No one is calling it child 
labor but if a 5 year kid can play professional video games, it would be 
a great profession. A kid who is acting in a movie like Hollywood movie 
‘Home Alone’, it is not considered as child labor. Therefore upskilling 
if it is still considered as only work and work is cost while not 
combining leisure and work as what Negotium may do, it is correct that 
it is a lot of labor to keep up with machine. But a more creative 
markets and digital communities may make more and more productive 
participants to be involved in value creation and more and more would be 
done through creating markets for leisure. If in a foot ball match, 
every spectator would directly be involved in a game, than it is a very 
innovative value creation through leisure, and digital sports would make 
such a scenario far more easy than working out for any such value 
creation in a real foot ball match.

PS: Just as Keynes alluded to “the old Adam in us” in his essay, 
religion features heavily in The Machine Age. How can humanity’s 
evolving relationship with the divine help us understand our 
relationships with work and machines, and the challenges posed by 
technological innovations like AI?

RS: Albert Einstein made the case for religion with exemplary lucidity: 
“science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” 
Religion and science are not opposites, as the Enlightenment supposed 
and today’s secularists believe, but complements, providing distinct, if 
overlapping, ways of understanding human life. Religious leaders must 
place themselves at the forefront of today’s debates on the meaning of 
AI for the future of humans, and they must do so in language that is 
sufficiently striking to command attention.

Dawood Mamoon: A spectacular question and even a wiser answer. Indeed 
religion has been the moral guide to humanity as it is also true for 
science and scientific method. Thereby we can start by understanding 
whether machine have any rights when there is human and machine 
interaction and the need would be far greater to work on machine rights 
as well as human rights in a AI dominant future. Than there has to be 
rights for avatars and digital avatar ought to follow certain moral, 
ethical and legal laws. For example machine should not be abused to harm 
others. Secondly morality in an AI future would be key to maintaining 
world peace while assuming that consumer and producer welfare is 
confirmed as hinted in above discussion.

Reference:

Skidelsky, R ‘Robert Skidelsky says more...’, 6th February, 2024, 
Project Syndicate.