The New Urban Economy – Christian Butron

From discovering fire to creating the first computer, throughout most of history, humans have always sought ways to make life easier from themselves. Humans’ ingenuity has led to a society where people have access to a steady supply of food and water, where people can travel halfway around the world in less than a day, and where people can know about anything that’s happening in another part of the world at any time. We often take innovations like these for granted in how difficult they were to achieve them and how many sacrifices were made as a result. Despite the drastic changes that occur in society due to innovation, time and time again, whenever innovation occurred, new jobs arose. That could very well change in the future where innovation in the form of robots can completely replace people in jobs.

I have always wondered what the logical conclusion for humanity would be if robots actually took all of our jobs. Would we be a society of beggars because we have no jobs or would we be in a perfect paradise where our only jobs are to “enlighten” ourselves? I suspect that the answer is neither one of those two options. Or perhaps the replacement of people by robots in jobs only result in the creation of newer, much different jobs. I believe that this is the most probable scenario. As incredible as modern computers and robots are, they will always have one great limitation: the lack of a human brain. Computers and robots have are capable of amazing things: they can execute billions of calculations in a matter of seconds, they can drive cars given the right conditions, and studies have shown that they are capable of learning new information so long as there’s code in place to parse this information. However, computers are governed by hard-coded logic. No matter how many layers of complexity you fill a computer with, they will always be driven by simple logic, which ultimately stifles the computer’s ability to innovative. The human brain, on the other hand, is innovative. It can think outside the box and at times make seemingly illogical decisions that may end up working out in the end. That is something that robots can never achieve. The new innovative economy will most likely be a symbiotic relationship between robots and people where robots will do most of the heavy labor, and people will maintain and improve the robots.

It is more likely that the influx of robots would cause a temporary fall in demand for low-skill labor. However, I am confident in society’s ability to shift to a tech-oriented economy. If not that, the service sector will most likely remain dominated by humans. The US had begun long ago shifting towards a tech/service-oriented economy. “Over the past half-century, the USA has shifted from an economy centered on producing physical goods to one centered on innovation and knowledge.” This is due to outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to other countries. As a result, the shift to a tech-oriented economy should not be too drastic for the US. Though we should include programming as part of our core curriculum if we are to make steps to include the working classes and people outside the tech-centric cities. For the issue of tech being dominated by a few big cities, I feel that the issue is mostly a consequence of culture. The US, especially in the cities, is changing and the other cities will eventually catch up. There are also places in the web where programmers all around the world can work together and not have to be located in the special “tech cities.” While the venture capital and tech as an industry is centralized in the big cities, tech as a culture is widespread and is growing every single day. In the end, I am very tech-optimistic. I am also skeptical as to how much the shift to tech would really harm our economy.

However, the real question facing humanity is how do we help other countries acclimate themselves to changing economy? Ultimately, the tech boom will reach developing countries. It’s already reaching China—the world’s number one manufacturer and exporter. For years they’ve thrived on their ability to attract foreign investment due to their massive yet cheap labor force. However, the influences of rising wages and a higher expectancy of standard of living in that country has been causing a slow, but steady outflow of manufacturing jobs to Southeast Asia and India. In response, there are reports that in late 2015, China was already making moves in building large robot-oriented factories, places that used to be dominated by cheap labor. While these moves were probably necessary, they could very well lead to the predicament facing the US today.