While artists and designers have discovered
there’s no sharp distinction between “real” and “virtual”
(aka
the New Aesthetic), economists are still
talking about “virtual”, even as the networks of computers they’re
referring to are exposing the economic externalities the greed of the
“first economy” is built on.
Bill Davidow wrote for the Atlantic 10 April 2012,
How Computers Are Creating a Second Economy Without Workers,
“Twenty years ago, if you went into an airport
you would walk up to a
counter and present paper tickets to a human being. That person would
register you on a computer, notify the flight you’d arrived, and check
your luggage in. All this was done by humans.”
Well, except for that part about “a computer”. And the flight computers
in the airplane. And the FAA computers. And….
This is also true:
“Today, you walk into an airport and look for a machine.
You put in a
frequent-flier card or credit card, and it takes just three or four
seconds to get back a boarding pass, receipt, and luggage tag. What
interests me is what happens in those three or four seconds. The moment
the card goes in, you are starting a huge conversation conducted entirely
among machines. Once your name is recognized, computers are checking your
flight status with the airlines, your past travel history, your name with
the TSA (and possibly also with the National Security Agency). They are
checking your seat choice, your frequent-flier status, and your access
to lounges.”
While Bruce Sterling can (rightly, I think) say that’s not AI,
nonetheless it all happens without
much human intervention. And pixelated images of airplanes don’t
start to indicate what’s going on in there.
The punchline:
“Here’s the challenge: In the past, every
million-dollar increase in economic output generated on the order of ten
jobs. In the future, in the productive Second Economy, it may generate
only one or two.”
That’s not new. I’m a farmer, and 90% of farm jobs in this country
Continue reading → 