Antisocial innovation spurs automation
Buccafusco, Christopher and Weinstein, Samuel N.,2024 - Christopher Buccafusco is the Edward & Ellen Schwarzman Distinguished Professor at Duke University School of Law. Samuel N. Weinstein is a Professor and Co-Director of the Heyman Center on Corporate Governance at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University "Antisocial Innovation," Georgia Law Review: Vol. 58: No. 2, Article 4. Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol58/iss2/4 //DH
4. Labor Harms. At least since the Industrial Revolution, people have been anxious about technology’s impact on workers—that they would be displaced by machines or, perhaps worse, turned into them.246 While most scholars believe that productivity gains from innovation outweigh the costs to workers in the long run, some recent research has been less sanguine.247 Artificial intelligence innovations may be displacing workers and suppressing wages at higher rates than in previous eras.248 In addition, new developments in worker surveillance are threatening workers’ health, privacy, and well-being.249
It is natural for innovation to make some jobs obsolete. The widespread adoption of automobiles had a devastating effect on buggy whip manufacturers.250 And while fewer people are needed to build a car than in the 1960s, the social benefits from productivity gains have historically been valuable.251 As robots increasingly replace human workers, however, displacement effects may exceed productivity gains. Recent research shows that increased use of robots, especially in manufacturing fields, significantly depressed both wages and employment.252 Economists now worry that the potential productivity gains from automation may not be strong enough to outweigh losses to labor. Darren Acemoglu and Pascaul Restrepo have recently warned of the possibility of excessive automation which “could reduce GDP and welfare.”253
Innovation also has the potential to benefit a firm while harming that firm’s employees. Surveillance technology is a salient example of an invention that has benefitted companies at the expense of labor.254 Employers’ desire to supervise their employees through intense monitoring is certainly not new.255 But firms have a newfound capability to conduct surveillance for longer durations and with a more expansive scope.256 And surveillance is becoming more intrusive as boundaries between work and home blur.257 These developments raise concerns for employee privacy, autonomy, and safety.