Predictions of tech catastrophe are wrong – society adapts

But is this pessimism justified? Although futurists like Martin Ford and Silicon Valley’s techno-evangelists argue that today’s technology is significantly more disruptive and fundamentally different from everything that came before, we should be skeptical of worst-case scenarios. Predictions of social catastrophe have accompanied every period of rapid technological change and have invariably turned out to be wrong.

It is far from clear that AI, for example, will be more disruptive than the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century or the replacement of horses by cars and typewriters by computers. Nor is there any reason to accept the "Luddite fallacy" that presents technology as a threat to overall levels of employment. The Asian Development Bank reports that in Asia, AI is already creating more jobs than it destroys. Today, as in the past, techno-pessimists err in assuming that technology is the only thing that changes, while society remains static and helpless. In reality, our ability to adapt and take advantage of technological change has been as constant as technological change itself.

Just as technology disrupts established patterns of life and work, it also creates opportunities to fulfil new needs and wants. It is expanding leisure time, for example, increasing workplace productivity and reducing time spent on domestic chores. Far from remaining idle, people use this freedom to pursue new interests and activities, generating demand for new goods and services in the process. The most obvious example of this has been the spectacular growth of entertainment industries, particularly over the last 50 years.

As we watch the World Cup in Russia, it is worth remembering that the origins of professional football can be traced back to the 1870s, when male factory workers in Britain secured a half-day holiday on Saturdays. Clubs responded to the emergence of a mass audience and the demand for paid entertainment by arranging regular fixtures in purpose-built stadiums. Football today is a global industry worth tens of billions of dollars, with the World Cup alone expected to generate revenues of more than $6 billion.

In addition to liberating time, technology also liberates resources by continually lowering the cost of existing goods and services. The money freed up in this way provides a stimulus to innovation and growth in the form of new investment and consumer spending. Yet the decline of old industries is too often seen in zero-sum terms.

Of course, rapid technological change always brings short-term adjustment costs, some of which fall disproportionately on different nations and sections of society. This calls for international cooperation and well-designed public policies that enable us to mitigate and share these costs fairly. Governments, businesses, trade unions and civil society need to work out solutions together. But this cannot be done on the basis that technology is the problem and stopping it the answer. Everyone loses from the economics of stagnation.