The ethics of labor automation : AI, technological disenfranchisement, and libertarian paternalism

The capitalist economic landscape constantly reinvents itself to capture new value opportunities, in an endless innovative process of what Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction"'. Its next major event, hastened by the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the emergence of highly accurate predictive behavioral data, is likely to assert itself in the labor economy. Labor costs often constitute the majority of a firm's operating expenses; indeed, the average wage share in highly developed nations currently hovers around 60% of GDP 2. Labor-automating technology is, for this reason, both anticipated and feared - the productivity enhancements of its adoption are likely to re-allocate trillions of dollars of revenue globally. Nevertheless, even in labor markets most susceptible to automation, Al is unlikely to completely replace any roles.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Packer, Jonathan,M.B.A.Sloan School of Management.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Leigh Hafrey.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122399

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/122399