Will Artificial Intelligence Empower One Knowledge Worker to Do the Work of Ten Workers?

by Dr. Jo Ann Oravec 12-22-23 

I would like to call your attention to an exciting academic article and press release that was produced by Inspira Corporation:  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4663704

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231214900482/en/New-Data-from-Inspira-AI-Predicts-Nine-out-of-10-Office-Jobs-Gone-Forever-as-a-Result-of-AI

Benny Traub, Izzy Traub, Jo Ann Oravec, Phil Peper, and Paul Thurman put together a model that supports what a lot of futurists and public policy leaders have suspected.  Soon, fewer workers will be needed to do the knowledge and office work of society.  The remaining workers will have powerful capacities, leveraged with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.  According to the model's results, by 2044 only one worker will be meaded to do the work of ten, which will make for profound societal changes.  What will happen after 2044?  The authors speculate that AI systems will continue to expand in their capabilities with "auto-automation" strategies in which the systems themselves will discover new opportunities and solve emerging problems.

The article discusses the ramifications of the "Age of Abundance," which the authors project will result because of the increased levels of productivity resulting from AI advances.  The production of goods and services will increase dramatically, leaving societies with the problem of how to disperse these riches.   One of the contributors, Professor Jo Ann Oravec of the University of Wisconsin (author of Good Robot, Bad Robot, Springer Nature, 2022), commented that "predictions about technological futures can never be entirely correct, but Inspira's efforts are based on solid thinking and will certainly stimulate a new level of insight in business, academics, and public policy. Projections of the impacts of AI are often bold but have little to back them up… The world is in for changes of such magnitude that we best prepare ourselves. The work that Inspira is doing is groundbreaking and is sure to have a profound impact on countless lives."

If you are curious about what will happen in the next twenty years when AI-related production issues are at the forefront of public policy concerns, this is the article for you.  Here's the title (it can be found in the Social Science Research Network, or SSRN): "Modeling the AI-Driven Age of Abundance: Applying the Human-to-AI Leverage Ratio (HAILR) to Post-Labor Economics/" https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4663704