Computers, AI And The New Oxygen Crisis

Oxygen is a fundamental element for living organisms today, but few people know that 2.3 billions years ago it was the biggest existential threat to life on earth. Historians named it the “Great Oxygenation Event”.

At first this proved very poisonous, but eventually life not only adapted but took advantage of the oxygen, with some organisms evolving new high-energy respiration pathways that reacted oxygen with carbohydrates from eaten plants. Respiration fueled the Cambrian explosion of sophisticated lifeforms which in turn led to us. — Nick Szabo, Elements, evolution, and the nitrogen crisis

I think this is a great analogy for technological advancement in our time. Computers and AI form the backbone of a new “oxygen revolution” and our economical environment is learning to adapt to these new elements.

But how “deadly” is AI for today’s jobs? Apparently, much less than oxygen at the time of GOE. 

Less than 5% of jobs could be fully automated — that is, every activity could be handled by a machine. We estimate, that for 60% of existing US jobs, 30% or more of current work activities can be automated by with available or announced technologies. In other words, for the majority of US jobs, a day and a half’s worth of activities in each work week can be automated. — HBR, How Many of Your Daily Tasks Could Be Automated?

The truth is that computers and AI pose an existential threat only to a tiny part of jobs, while for the vast majority of people AI is simply going to decrease the average numbers of working hours.

It’s not the first time that it happens in our history. In 1870 people in western countries used to work 65 hours on average. Now the average working week is around 40 hours.

Are we less rich today than in the past? Quite the opposite. We work less, produce more and we have less physically strenuous jobs. We are more free, better educated and, most importantly, richer than ever.

We can do things that also the richest man on earth a hundred years ago could just dream about — such as talking face-to-face in real time with anyone and travelling from one continent to another in a few hours.

AI, and more in general technological advancement, it’s not in the business of destroying jobs, but in broadening what we consider possible: enhanced learning, low cost gene editing and commercial interplanetary travel aren’t to be considered impossible anymore.

Just very difficult.

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