Lord Rees of Ludlow
Main Page: Lord Rees of Ludlow (Crossbench - Life peer)
Lord Rees of Ludlow (CB)
My Lords, the big social and economic question is: will this new machine age be like earlier disruptive technologies, or is it really different this time in terms of job creation? Machines will take over more and more of the work entailed in manufacturing and retail distribution. Moreover, AI can take over many white-collar jobs: routine legal work, routine accountancy, medical diagnostics, even surgery. Through their ability to handle immense data streams, computers can control traffic flows, the electric grid and such-like far better than humans, which is an unambiguous benefit. In contrast, some skilled service jobs, such as plumbing and gardening, will be among the hardest to automate, and it may be a long time before truck and taxi drivers are redundant. As a parallel, think of civil aviation. Most flying is on autopilot; a real pilot is needed only to cope with emergencies. But because the pilots are passive and superfluous for 99% of the time, they do not acquire the experience—the thousands of hours of being really at the controls—which the earlier generation of pilots had. There will be analogous problems with the transition to driverless lorries, which I guess will be accepted by the public only in controlled environments—in limited city-centre areas where they have the roads to themselves—or maybe on motorways. Robotic interaction with the real world is still clumsy. Robots can play great chess, but they cannot move pieces on a real chessboard as adeptly as a child. They cannot tie your shoelaces, but sensor technology, speech recognition and so forth are advancing apace. So we do, indeed, need new jobs.
The digital revolution generates huge wealth for an elite, but preserving a healthy society will require redistribution of that wealth. There is talk of using that money to provide a universal income, but the snags of implementing that are well known, and the societal disadvantages are severe. It would surely be far better to use that wealth to foster redeployment of labour into real, socially valuable jobs where the human element is crucial, and where there is already a huge unmet demand—above all, carers for the old.
It is true that robots can take over routine aspects of care. At present, wealthy people are the only ones who have the choice, and they want personal carers not automata. I think everyone in their old age would like to be cared for by a real person.
Another topical example is the predicament of lonely, elderly or disabled people expected to access the benefits system online. Think of the anxiety and frustration when something goes wrong. Such people will have peace of mind only if there are enough computer-savvy carers to ensure that they are not disadvantaged. A humane society should vastly enhance the number and status of those who carry out these caring roles, and there are other jobs that would make our lives better and provide worthwhile employment—gardeners in public parks, custodians, and so forth. To what extent can that be achieved consistent with the current mantra of austerity and the small state?
We should also promote a resurgence of crafts of all kinds and enhance the esteem of those who excel at them. We have seen the emergence of celebrity chefs, and we will see more esteem for talented exponents of other crafts. Again, if we see the choices made by the wealthy, who have the most freedom, we find that they spend money on labour-intensive artefacts or activities to provide employment. The touchstone for a progressive Government should surely be to provide for everyone the kind of life and work that the better-off choose to have.
Other speakers have highlighted the corrosive effects of inequality in this country, but inequality between countries will lead to growing embitterment and instability, because those in poor countries are now, via IT and the media, far more aware of what they are missing. Moreover, if robotics makes it economic for wealthy countries to reshore manufacturing to within their own borders, the developmental boost that countries in the Far East receive from lower manufacturing costs will no longer be available to countries in the Middle East and Africa, which would be a severe challenge for international relations and the control of migration.
Finally, I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, in emphasising the importance of coping with these changes, which is linked to another need—enhanced provision for lifelong learning.