The Human-Centered Economy
Hello, I hope that you and yours are holding up in a difficult time for the world.
This past week, I spoke on a panel about AI. I was asked, “How do we build a prosperous economy for everyone in an era of Artificial Intelligence that can do a lot of work faster than most people can imagine?”
This was actually the central theme of my presidential campaign in 2020. If anything, the trends have picked up steam. You can see the proportion of repetitive cognitive jobs – those most likely to be replaced by AI – already starting to decrease. 44% of U.S. jobs are either repetitive manual or repetitive cognitive and thus at least somewhat subject to automation.
Let’s say that you agree this is a concern – indeed many parents are increasingly anxious about what field to suggest to their children as tasks that were viewed as extraordinarily secure – like coding for example – may be performed by AI in the not-so-distant future.
I answered, “The economy is going to get more difficult and punitive for everyday Americans. Only about 35% of the country is comprised of college graduates. The other two-thirds are in industries like retail and manufacturing that have already seen disruption due to both automation and globalization. The question is, how do we share the bounty of all of the value that AI will generate to assist in what will be a generational transition?”
This will be familiar to many of you who followed my presidential campaign. I’m still chasing the same problems I wrote about in my book “The War on Normal People.“
We went through a massive disruption during COVID. The U.S. government printed and issued $5 trillion over 2020 and 2021 to keep states and cities and the economy afloat. This led to inflation that we are still dealing with through higher interest rates that will in turn force a revaluation of many assets in the weeks ahead, particularly commercial real estate and housing.
Many mistakenly equate the $5 trillion with stimulus checks. $5 trillion is about $15,000 per American. The average American got maybe $2,000 in stimulus checks, or less than 14% of that total. Where did the rest go? It went to the financial system, COVID infrastructure and treatment, large corporations like airlines and cruise ship companies, state and municipal budgets, the payroll protection program for small businesses and on and on.
When people ask me about UBI, I refer them to the enhanced child tax credit of 2021, which lowered child poverty rates in the U.S. from about 11% to 5% and had positive effects on millions of families in terms of health, education, lack of domestic abuse and every other indicator. We discontinued the enhanced child tax credit in 2022, and child poverty shot back up to 12%. It worked, but soon fell prey to political dysfunction.
I still have people in D.C. working on reviving the child tax credit – if you want to help them they’re at https://humanityforward.com/.
I’m now convinced that we will never be able to address the economic and social challenges of AI unless we first overcome our political polarization – I wrote about this in Forward. That’s why I started the Forward Party, which is now active in 48 states with tens of thousands of volunteers and dozens of affiliated elected officials. This week we announced a merger with the South Carolina Independence Party, which will immediately give us ballot access and recognition in a key state. The path to a human-centered economy will not occur through either of the current major parties, but only through a political realignment that makes solving our problems necessary to stay in power.
To the question I was asked about AI, I responded, “Look, there are a few steps. First, make the American political system rational and focused on actually solving real problems. Second, channel our collective resources to get the boot off of people’s throats and move us toward a mindset of abundance not scarcity. Our economy’s now $25 trillion, or $75k a head, which is enough to address extreme poverty, and AI could make abundance real. Last, move the economy beyond capital efficiency – where we will have more and more trouble competing - toward things like caring for others, or arts and creativity. In other words, make the economy work for us and measure it accordingly. Our problem now is that our economy is growing but most people are not thriving in terms of wellbeing or ability to be excited about their future.”
My questioner liked this. He asked, “Okay, I understand that the stimulus checks were overblown in terms of inflation. But how do you implement a whole new human-centered economy without it being inflationary?”
I responded, “You’d want multiple currencies. Imagine a currency for arts and creativity that you earn every time you produce a mural or perform at a public event. And then another one for caregiving, nurturing and tutoring. People who pursue these activities would earn a new currency that they could trade for goods or services. You could create whole new economies and connections that encourage people to do things that many of them would prefer to do anyway, and the inflationary effect would be limited to whatever is redeemed in a particular period. Accruing these new currencies could be something you’re proud of publicly in a way that you wouldn’t be with dollars.”
Some people got very excited about this, as there were a lot of creatives in the crowd. It is, in my opinion, one of the only ways to produce human flourishing as AI performs more and more work.
This is a difficult time. Even in very difficult times, it’s vital to imagine what a brighter future could be and how we get there. Without that, how ever will we get there?
This week on the podcast I sit down with futurist and founder of the X Prize Peter Diamandis to talk about the path to UBI, democracy reform and more. For that conversation, click here. To be part of the realignment of our politics around solutions like Ranked Choice Voting, join Forward Party here.
