In future pandemics, we don't have to shutdown the economy

Covid-19 has hit the world economy like a ton of bricks, and this week, as the world still recovers, researchers in China found a new strain of the swine flu that has pandemic potential. As the world's hunger for meat increases, so will zoonosis —disease crossover from animals to humans. If we embrace technology and social progress, in future pandemics, we won't need to shut down the economy; the economy will work for us while we shelter in place. 

Being secure and fulfilled in the modern world requires some basic needs to be met: shelter, food, health, some leisure time, and, increasingly, access to the Internet and web-based services. Having these needs fulfilled gives workers a foundation of security, freeing them to be productive participants in the economy and to pursue their vision of happiness. This security is taken for granted in prosperous countries, but at the bottom of the economic ladder, it continues to be precarious and hard-fought.

The pandemic has necessitated that many of us make an impossible trade-off between our health and other basic needs. While public health experts urge Americans to stay home for collective safety and health, people from every walk of life decried decreases in income and an inability to earn money to pay for housing and food.

But does it have to be this way? 

America is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Continued gains in technology and automation only increase that prosperity. Assuming we as a nation agree that we value both the robustness of our economy and meeting the basic needs of citizens to enable the pursuit of liberty and happiness, we need to prioritize automation as a tool for safety and productivity while concurrently fairly distributing wealth to meet everyone's basic needs. If we do, the choice between health and productivity becomes false.

Robots are scary, except when they protect humans

Productivity runs the world, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the primary measure of the total effect of productivity. It is one of the most far-reaching international measurements of success. 

Global GDP has increased exponentially, thanks to the increasing population, globalization, and automation. Since 1985, the exponential rise of robots has significantly contributed to increases in global economic growth. Using robots and automation to increase production contributed to about 10% of GDP growth between 1993 and 2016. Companies implement automation to eliminate "boring" or repetitive parts of jobs, and when successfully implemented, higher profits follow. As automated robots and software become ever more sophisticated and capable, this trend will only accelerate.

Capitalism runs on increasing yields at all costs. Automation is such a force that, when implemented successfully, increases profit margins, and outperforms human beings.  

Amid the pandemic, the economy is deteriorating because human workers can't work and can't fill their role in the human-capital-based economic system. Using today's technology, essential sectors like accommodation and food services, manufacturing, and retail could benefit from automation. With current technology, according to a Mckinsey study, each of these sectors could utilize robots for 73 percent, 60 percent, and 53 percent of the job tasks, respectively. If we had successfully implemented technology into these roles, we could minimize productivity losses in the pandemic. Essential workers, who today must work, would be protected and able to shelter in place, giving public health experts the time needed to manage the pandemic.

A food delivery Kiwibot spotted in the wilds of Berkeley!

If mechanization could fill these essential roles, protect humans, and increase company revenue, why aren't they adopted?

According to a 2017 poll conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, 57 percent of Americans believe that automation does more harm than good. A Pew Research study echoes this sentiment, which found that 72 percent of Americans are worried about a future where robots can do many human jobs. The same poll found that 59 percent believe that regardless of whether the robot can perform the tasks better or at a lower cost, that businesses are not justified in replacing a human for a robot because income inequality would rise. Sixty-five percent of people wouldn't be able to occupy their time productively without 9-5 jobs. 

It seems that the root of people's fear is not automation per se, but rather the economic and social impact associated with it.

The anti-robot sentiment, however, dramatically decreases when the machines are doing dangerous or unhealthy jobs. In that instance, a considerable majority, 85 percent, strongly favor the job done by a machine. Considering hazardous situations is essential in fighting the current pandemic and future ones to come. Whereas a grocery store job or a waiter job are not life-threatening under normal circumstances, in a pandemic, they are.

Looking at the rest of the boats, which should be rising in conjunction with corporate profits, we see that increasing national and global economic prosperity, policy failures have allowed that wealth to be increasingly sequestered amongst the few. Wages stagnated around 1979 and never returned to pre-1980 growth levels, with productivity increasing 69.6 percent, but wages only rising 11.6 percent in the period from 1979-2018. 

As stated above, in the 2017 Pew research study on automation, 85 percent of Americans believe that machines should replace dangerous jobs. We also know that robots and automation increase profits, therefore creating more money in the economy. Still, almost an equal amount of Americans believe, and thus far are proven correct, that they would be economically worse off in a more automated workforce.

Where does this dichotomy arise? In the inability to equitably distribute increased wealth despite more dollars generated per person. It is one of the most central and profound policy failures of the twenty-first century.  

Automation is economic resilience, but we also need to cover basic needs.

It would be nice to think that this pandemic is a once-per-generation event, but we would do humanity a great disservice to not plan for the future. Most fundamentally, that means we need to adapt and strengthen our production system to take advantage of technology that fuels productivity. These changes must come in conjunction with national policies to protect citizens displaced by the mechanized economy.

Americans are worried that automation will mean they won't have jobs and, therefore, won't have money for rent, food, and everything that comes with modern life. As the US system currently stands, they wouldn't. Even if they have a job, many Americans are unable to weather two months without income generation because it threatens their basic needs.

Higher GDP should mean more money for bold and innovative social services like universal basic income and basic, mundane ones like housing assistance. But innovation will require a reorganization of national funding priorities. Critically, a shift to an automated economy creates fiscal and productivity resilience but only with provisions of basic needs for citizens whose former jobs become irrelevant due to automation. It means that natural disasters, including current and future pandemics, won't shut down the economy, but that the economy will work for us in times of crisis. Embracing technology means that, in the modern era, we don't have to choose between economic success and protecting citizens from a pandemic.