Towards a golden age of welfare and precariousness?

Will artificial intelligence, which some see as triggering a technological golden age, help create a new golden age of work, and what might it look like?

AI at work: benefits already visible

This is the question many people are asking today, and to which we naturally hope to find a positive answer.

The benefits of the irruption of artificial intelligence, or at least some of them, already seem obvious. I say some of them because, in my opinion, many have yet to be discovered.

Not the least of these is the long-awaited simplification or even automation of laborious, repetitive tasks, with no added value or real personal fulfillment, provided we take care not to automate those that bring satisfaction, as a recent study proved.

In this experiment we were careful to deploy the gen AI tool against the toil (waiting for others to respond) but not the joyful parts (creatively landing the meeting). Leaders will need to work with employees in this same way to deploy gen AI in ways that deliver productivity without diminishing sources of employee pride and satisfaction.

HBR – How Gen AI Can Make Work More Fulfilling

No sign of a new golden age of work

But some long-term trends are far less cheerful. As an article I was reading recently (Reinventing Work for the Digital Golden Age) put it, there’s nothing to suggest that this technological golden age will translate into a golden age of work.

The trends it mentions are, in brief:

1. Shrinking organizations: Automation and flexible contracts reduce the need for employees.
2. Multiplication of ways of working: From teams of freelancers to matchmaking platforms.
3. Fewer formal jobs: A transition to a work model less centered on traditional jobs.
4. Increased demands from workers: Workers, especially those of Generation X, are looking for better working conditions and more autonomy.
5. Diversification of work contracts: Fewer permanent contracts, but more varied projects.

Apart from workers’ demands (which we have no guarantee will be met), and the different ways of working (provided they are chosen and not imposed upon), I can see no signs of a golden age of work. Note the pirouette that transforms precarization into “more varied projects”.

It’s a concern the author shares, and one that leads him to propose ideas for making this new golden age of work a reality.

Future work trends include:

1. Decentralized work infrastructure: Managing one’s own professional data via digital portfolios.
2. New models of collaboration: Emergence of new digital teams and cooperatives.
3. Investment in lifelong learning: Adapting workers’ skills throughout their lives.
4. Financial security mechanisms: Establish universal basic income systems or diversified public services.
5. Support for entrepreneurship: Encourage small businesses and self-employment.

Put another way, this means:

1°) Individuals are going to have to figure out how to pay their bills on their own.

2°) It’s up to the public authorities to support individual entrepreneurship and pay a universal basic income, which is an implicit admission of the inevitable impoverishment of the population.

Really no sign of a new golden age of work

Let’s recall the characteristics of a golden age:

Economic prosperity: flourishing economic development, with increasing wealth, job opportunities and high living standards.

I can see the efficiency gains for companies, but absolutely no guarantee of this for people.

Social stability: A harmonious society, where conflict is minimized and justice and equity prevail.

We’re moving in the opposite direction.

Cultural and artistic advances: A period marked by significant achievements in the arts, sciences and philosophy, with creative flourishing.

AI relies on statistical and probabilistic models and is unable to cope with a new event or think “out of the box” (AI challenges human CEOs in a simulation and gets fired). Too bad for creativity.

Maybe I’m wrong, because AI will free up creative time for people…but I think that time will be taken up looking for assignments to pay the bills.

Innovation and technological progress: Major advances in technology and innovation that improve quality of life and make work easier.

Yes, for technological advances, but for quality of life this remains to be proven (Research: Using AI at Work Makes Us Lonelier and Less Healthy), leaving only the facilitation of work.

Sense of well-being: A general feeling of satisfaction and happiness among the population, with shared values that strengthen the social fabric.

What’s being proposed looks more like a fragmentation of the social body.

I can take this in any sense, but I can’t see it as a new golden age of work, or else we need to revise our definition of golden age or work, or both.

Bottom line

In terms of a golden age of work, the proposals put forward here are more akin to a golden age of precariousness and a form of welfare, with the public authorities shouldering the responsibility of financially compensating for the damage caused elsewhere.

This raises three questions:

1°) Are the trends presented here relevant? It seems to me that they are, at least to a certain extent and depending on local specificities in terms of culture and labor protection.

2°) Are there other ways of avoiding the predicted dark ages?

I’ll leave you to ponder.

Related articles:

The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. (Arthur C. Clarke). The challenges posed by AI are not technological, but must be met today. AI: what if the worst was desirable for some? 2035: AI does everything and there are no more jobs How to reinvent work and professions in the age of AI Let’s stop being nAIve with AI in the workplace