For those who care about the future, a compelling visionFor those of us who work in Artificial Intelligence and also think about what the future will look like on a twenty to one-hundred year timeframe, A Celebration Society is a very welcome contribution to the literature, and the topics it addresses seem eminently sensible.For everyone else, it presents a set of ideas and relatively deep elaborations that may seem shocking or implausible. Beginning with the prospect of widespread technological unemployment, and flipping that on its head in a kind of “Copernican Revolution,” the book envisions how we might exchange potential dystopian outcomes for a positive (and yes, somewhat utopian) “celebration society.” It asks and attempts to answer the crucial question: as we transition from an economics of scarcity to one of abundance, how do we want society to be organized to take advantage of this shift to benefit us all?The initial premise of the book is that automation, and in particular artificial intelligence, will progressively and ultimately eliminate the need for human labor in meeting human consumption demand. We have heard this sort of proposal (almost always presented as a worry) many times before; historically, while technological progress usually causes some employment disruptions, it also ends up creating more jobs than it destroys in the long run.There is something different this time. The author briefly argues for the premise, based on continuing exponential improvements in computing power and the impact of “narrow” (task-oriented) artificial intelligence. I have offered some further argument at the end of this review, as it is crucial for those who are skeptical. In any case, the author has elected to emphasize the what, why, and how of his post-scarcity vision, and does so to great effect.After posing the issue and providing initial context, Kolber sketches out details of his vision for what a post-scarcity society would look like. The essence of this vision is that instead of seeing the elimination of the need for human labor as unemployment, we see it as leisure. Instead of having to work for a living, we play at life. This does not mean no one does anything “productive,” but it completely changes the nature of motivations and productive outputs, with concomitant changes in how society is organized.It is crucial to understand that Kolber presents one particular Celebration Society as his vision, without imagining that it is correct, perfect, or preferable to everyone. He wants to “spark discussion of a different path,” and he says “This book should not be the final word on a Celebration Society; far from it. It is only the beginning.” You will find ample details to disagree with, some practical, some ethical, some technological. This is all within the book’s intent to spur consideration of the more general idea, which is that eliminating the need for human labor can be a boon rather than a curse, if appropriate organizations of society evolve. He is proposing a testable hypothesis, not a dogmatic political prescription.The tail of the book elaborates some of the technological capabilities that we will need, or that seem likely to enhance, a Celebration Society. Think of it this way: if everyone stopped working tomorrow, where would we come up short? Kolber details how abundant energy, abundant matter, and organization of intelligence will fill the gaps. Again, the specific technologies he addresses may or may not be realized, but these are the areas in which research must focus. Then he moves on to technologies that are not strictly required to close the gap, but will make life even better in a post-scarcity world. Some of these, like the “mortality option” (living longer or indefinitely), might seem a little off-topic, but are important because they work well in a post-scarcity world and poorly in one of scarcity. Isn’t it a sign that something is wrong with our societal organization, that people living longer is generally viewed as a big problem?In summary, anyone interested in the future of humankind in a world of continuing and inevitable technological advancement should read A Celebration Society. It will give you a jump start toward thinking about our technological reality in a very different way - where automation and technological disruption represents opportunity rather than calamity.* * *As mentioned I want to briefly argue for the idea that recent innovations have put us on a path to eliminate the need for human labor, even in the face of the historical evidence that technological progress generally creates more jobs than it destroys.Machines automate physical labor; computers automate cognitive labor. In both cases, however, there are many tasks that machines and computers cannot perform, because those tasks require a level of cognitive flexibilty that neither mechanical devices nor software as it is historically constituted exhibit.One reason for this is sometimes called “Moravec’s Paradox.” In the early days of computing, it was thought that the “higher” human cognitive features like logical thinking would be difficult to build, but the sort of things that animals can do, like perceive the world, would be easy. It turned out to be the opposite. Logic, mathematics, and other fully “symbolic” operations were straightforward in traditional software, but no one knew how to, for example, identify objects visually with software. In the past twenty years, we have learned a great deal about how human brains perceive and produce actions in the world. The foundations of these capabilties have been implemented in an AI technology called “deep learning.” A deep learning system, from an architectural perspective, looks a lot like the human visual, auditory, or motor cortex.While this leaves us still a long way from AI with human-equivalent cognition, it vastly increases the sphere of tasks that can be addressed with automation. Computer systems can learn to flexibly recognize patterns in circumstances, with sensitivity to context, and therefore make the kinds of decisions that only humans could previously make. Robotic control systems can make sense of the world through visual and tactile sensors and navigate flexibly within it, without the brittle and catastrophic failures, or need for a highly constrained environment, that characterized older systems. This enables not only autonomous vehicles but autonomous mining, manufacturing, and distribution.As these capabilities are deployed in the economy, they have the potential to eliminate a very large swath of jobs, including many that require skill or education to perform. They will likely eliminate the low-paying, unskilled jobs that have sometimes served as transitional or fall-back work for those displaced. And the jobs created in the expanded industry of automation will require very high levels of education and skill, such as mechanical engineering or software development.Economies and markets are extremely robust, and it is of course possible that the labor market will adapt to these changes, too. A Celebration Society further asks: should it? Perhaps the current system is a treadmill that we can step off, even if there is not a wrench approaching to stop it abruptly.1
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