The Human-Centered Economy

Hello, I hope that your summer is going great.  My kids don’t start school until Labor Day so we are milking the summer for all it can give.   

4 years ago I ran for President arguing for Universal Basic Income based on the idea that AI was coming and was going to do away with many American jobs. 

Today, AI is here and gathering steam, and is already displacing workers in different fields.  One joke going around is, “Why can’t AI do my dishes?”  Instead it’s consuming many cognitive tasks, from coding to writing to art and design to legal work.  Friends who are starting companies marvel at how they are hiring fewer people for roles that now get handled by software.  At the same time, friends who have started automation companies are seeing continuing growth and adoption. 

There are almost 2 million call center workers in the United States.  I believe most will eventually be replaced by AI.  That’s an obvious application, but many will be affected in more inobvious ways.  Perhaps relatedly, I’ve had multiple friends lose their jobs lately in finance, tech and media.  Most of these people were my age – in their 40s – and were on the pricier side.  Organizations will always look to do more with less, and some are presently pruning costs.   

The question is, what lies ahead for human workers? 

Here’s the core idea:  If the only measurements are cost and efficiency, more and more of us are going to lose to the machines.  AI will get smarter and faster in ways that we cannot. 

I think people are waking up to this.  4 years ago, people would sometimes talk about reskilling and being lifelong learners as if we can all scramble above the water line if only we’re a little more nimble.  Now, there’s a growing recognition that this is going to be unrealistic. 

I continue to hold that addressing poverty is the most direct and concrete way we can help people.  Humanity Forward is lobbying Congress for a revival of the enhanced child tax credit.  There is a ton of needless suffering and deprivation in this country and it is fueling our politics in dangerous ways. 

I would get asked this on the campaign trail several years ago, and I would sometimes describe how my wife Evelyn was at home with our children, one of whom is on the autism spectrum.  How much was her time and work valued at in our current marketplace?  The answer is “zero” even though we all know that her work might be some of the most important and valuable that a person can do. 

Imagine an economy where education and nurturing has its own value, along with arts and creativity and health and wellness.  I joke sometimes that we should probably be getting paid to go to the gym, because it’s great for society and saves us all money if we stay healthy. 

A multipolar economy is our way out of the grinding wheels of the machine – that we build an economy around human values and helping people live fruitful lives.  Our time is the most important resource we have to offer, independent of what the cost-based marketplace currently assigns us.  There can be more ways to both measure value and value our time. 

Last week on Freakonomics Radio I was asked what a human-centered economy could look like in practice.  I responded, “Let’s say I tutor your child at math.  That’s what I’m good at.  I get a 2-hour time credit for my work.  I then give it to someone else in return for their help cleaning my garage.  I’m not great at that.  That person then gives the time credit to someone else in return for a homecooked meal, which is also something I’m not good at.  Everyone has something that they can contribute.  If we start valuing and trading people’s time in new ways, we could enable a different sort of economy that works for many more of us.” 

This is not a new idea; Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics became interested in Timebanking when he read a book by Edgar Cahn called “No More Throw-away People.”  Edgar Cahn was Bobby Kennedy’s speechwriter in the 1960s, a time when the war on poverty was front and center.  Technology could enable time banking or trading in powerful new ways.  It’s also making the development of a human-centered economy all the more important. 

If we’re going to lose a race to the machines, perhaps we should change the racetrack and measurements to something we can win and be happy about.  How do we build an economy that works for people?  By seeing to it that there are ways to create meaning, purpose and value for as many as possible. 

My extended interview appears this week on the podcast and you can check out the Freakonomics interview here. If you’re interested in getting involved, send us an email to time@humanityforwardfoundation.org. 

I know that this may seem utopian to some of you reading this – and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  The fact is that we’re going to veer toward either dystopia or utopia over time, and I’d vastly prefer the latter.  Which are we trending towards right now?  Someone’s got to paint the picture of abundance and possibility – it might as well be us.