How To Be Human In The Digital Economy

Description

An argument in favor of finding a place for humans (and humanness) in the future digital economy. In the digital economy, accountants, baristas, and cashiers can be automated out of employment; so can surgeons, airline pilots, and cab drivers. Machines will be able to do these jobs more efficiently, accurately, and inexpensively. But, Nicholas Agar warns in this provocative book, these developments could result in a radically disempowered humanity. The digital revolution has brought us new gadgets and new things to do with them. The digital revolution also brings the digital economy, with machines capable of doing humans' jobs. Agar explains that developments in artificial intelligence enable computers to take over not just routine tasks but also the kind of “mind work” that previously relied on human intellect, and that this threatens human agency. The solution, Agar argues, is a hybrid social-digital economy. The key value of the digital economy is efficiency. The key value of the social economy is humanness. A social economy would be centered on connections between human minds. We should reject some digital automation because machines will always be poor substitutes for humans in roles that involve direct contact with other humans. A machine can count out pills and pour out coffee, but we want our nurses and baristas to have minds like ours. In a hybrid social-digital economy, people do the jobs for which feelings matter and machines take on data-intensive work. But humans will have to insist on their relevance in a digital age. Cover Half title Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Taking the Long View of Digital Revolution The Threat to Human Agency We Should Avoid a Present Bias about Computers and a Belief in Human Exceptionalism Forward to a Social-Digital Future A Note on Philosophical Method An Outline of the Book 1. Is the Digital Revolution the Next Big Thing? Will the Digital Revolution Fizzle? The Magic Combination of Artificial Intelligence and Data How AI Could Transform Transportation How AI Could Transform Health Concluding Comments 2. AI’s Split Personality—Minds or Mind Workers? Philosophical and Pragmatic Interests in Machine Minds: A Focus on Making Minds or on Doing Mind Work The Difference between Authentic and Ersatz Minds Hyperactive Agency Detectors and Human-Like Machines A Moral Reason to Avoid Creating Machines with Minds Concluding Comments 3. Data as a New Form of Wealth How Could Data Be Wealth? Unfairness and the New Forms of Wealth Does Data Want to Be Free? Do unto Facebook and Google … Micropayments for the Use of Our Data? Concluding Comments 4. Can Work Be a Norm for Humans in the Digital Age? Searching for Work that Is Both Productive and Therapeutic in the Digital Age The Inductive Optimism of the Economists The Protean Powers of the Digital Package Will Humans Always Control the Last Mile of Choice? A Conjecture about the Labor Market of the Digital Age Gaining Philosophical Perspective on the Dispute between Optimists and Pessimists Concluding Comments 5. Caring about the Feelings of Lovers and Baristas What Is It Like to Love a Robot? From Romantic to Work Relationships What Counts as a Social Job? Can I Justify My Pro-Human Bias? Concluding Comments 6. Features of the Social Economy in the Digital Age Two Economies for the Digital Age Some Noteworthy Differences between Social and Digital Goods The Ambiguous Digital Futures of Sales Assistants The Different Digital Age Futures of Uber and Airbnb Space Exploration as Social Work Concluding Comments 7. A Tempered Optimism about the Digital Age The Different Logic of Predictions and Ideals We Should Prefer Robust Ideals The Social-Digital Economy versus the Collaborative Commons The Social-Digital Economy versus a Jobless Future with a Universal Basic Income The UBI as an Inadequate Response to Inequality in the Digital Age An Expanded Basic Income? Concluding Comments 8. Machine Breaking for the Digital Age See through the Digital Halo Effect! Don’t Fall for Tech TINA! If You Can Cheat an Algorithm, Then Why Not? Work for Free for Oxfam, but Make Facebook Pay! Don’t Fight the Last War! Concluding Comments 9. Making a Very Human Digital Age Welcoming a Social Age Notes Introduction: Taking the Long View of Digital Revolution Chapter 1: Is the Digital Revolution the Next Big Thing? Chapter 2: AI’s Split Personality—Minds or Mind Workers? Chapter 3: Data as a New Form of Wealth Chapter 4: Can Work Be a Norm for Humans in the Digital Age? Chapter 5: Caring about the Feelings of Lovers and Baristas Chapter 6: Features of the Social Economy in the Digital Age Chapter 7: A Tempered Optimism about the Digital Age Chapter 8: Machine Breaking for the Digital Age Chapter 9: Making a Very Human Digital Age Index