Opinion by Frank Stronach • FP
The OpenAI logo is seen displayed on a cell phone with an image on a computer monitor generated by ChatGPT's Dall-E text-to-image model, Dec. 8, 2023, in Boston.
Back in the 1980s, when artificial intelligence (AI) was still the stuff of science fiction and computers and automation were changing the way we worked, a number of futurists and economists predicted “the end of work” and rising living standards.
Some of them claimed that by the year 2030, most people would no longer need to work, as robots and automation would perform virtually all of the jobs we used to do.
Not only would we not need to work, according to these experts, but incomes and living standards would rise due to the wealth these new technologies generated.
Clearly, it hasn’t quite turned out that way — at least not for the majority of Canadians. If anything, most people who have jobs are working longer than ever and seeing their incomes stagnate or decline. And most of the wealth generated by these new technologies has not trickled down to the average citizen.
When I was CEO of Magna International back in the late 1980s — the time when robotics first began appearing on automotive production and assembly lines — I publicly raised the issue of who would be the chief beneficiaries of these new technologies and what would happen to the assembly line jobs being replaced by robots.
It’s hardly mentioned anymore nowadays, in part because most of our manufacturing has either been shuttered or offshored to countries where workers are still cheaper than robots.
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But without a doubt, many jobs will disappear in the years ahead because of technological advances. Robotics and automation are moving outside the factories where they were first adopted and into every facet of our work and our lives, displacing a growing number of workers in the process.
In the decade ahead, everything from self-driving transport trucks and taxi cabs to elder care robots will cause the loss of millions of jobs around the world. And that’s not counting the job losses that will happen once AI becomes deeply rooted in the offices and workplaces of our country.
A report published last week by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that AI — the most transformational new technology to emerge in our lifetimes — has the potential to increase incomes for high-income earners while also accelerating income inequality.
On the other hand, the IMF report also warned that AI could displace a large number of high-income workers performing white-collar jobs in finance, communications, and law — individuals who were previously immune to job losses caused by robotics and automation.
But even if AI ends up wiping out a large number of jobs, we can’t blame a technology for our society’s growing income inequality. That’s the fault of our system.
The fact remains, Canada’s economic fundamentals are unsound and are not conducive to fostering economic growth. AI is focused on the digital economy and the information that underpins it — whether that be financial data or words.
Unfortunately, in Canada we’ve increasingly abandoned the real economy — the economy where we make tangible products such as cars, phones, machines and furniture.
If we want to insulate ourselves from the coming wave of job losses that AI will inevitably unleash, then we need to once again start making things. We need to stop exporting our abundant raw materials and importing finished goods made elsewhere. We need to start turning our natural resources into value-added goods that the rest of the world wants to buy.
And we need to unchain our entrepreneurs and small business owners so they can create the innovative new products that will generate added wealth and increase the size of our economy.
Politics as usual won’t fix our economy. And neither will big business — or what’s left of it in Canada.
If we created the right conditions for startups and small businesses to thrive — by removing business income tax, for example — then we could spark an economic boom that would add hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
But small businesses across Canada have to unite and make their voice heard, because right now no one is listening to their needs, and unless they band together and become a force to be reckoned with, nothing will change.
Small businesses can revive our manufacturing sector — if we dismantle the red tape and create the right environment for them to grow and prosper.
That would be a guaranteed solution to raising the incomes and living standards of millions of Canadians, regardless of what AI or any other disruptive technology has in store in the years to come.
National Post
fstronachpost@gmail.com
Frank Stronach is the founder of Magna International Inc., one of Canada’s largest global companies, and the Stronach Foundation for Economic Rights (www.economiccharter.ca).
STRONACH HAS MOVED TO AUSTRIA WHERE HE FORMED HIS OWN CONSERVATIVE PARTY
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