A couple of weeks back, I talked about the idea that all humans have intrinsic self-worth - no matter who they are or what they do - and how it only came into play around the mid-19th century. This idea wasn’t enshrined into international law until the mid-20th century, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It might seem obvious to us that all human beings are fundamentally equal. But, on the scale of human history, it’s still a fairly recent ideal. And it still has a long way to go.
What I want to talk about in this week’s newsletter is why this change happened and whether we’ll continue to think this way in the future. Understanding why we started to think that all humans are intrinsically valuable is important if we want to treat other living beings with the same kind of care and respect, like non-human animals and ecosystems. It’s also important for actually treating all humans as intrinsically valuable, not just the humans in rich and powerful countries. And, as I’ll discuss below, it’s vitally important for continuing to treat humans as intrinsically valuable in light of technological changes likely to change the current structure of society.
So why did we come to believe that all humans have intrinsic self-worth and dignity? I’m going to assume a materialistic reading of why this happened, namely that social values change when material circumstances enable them to. Throughout history, humans have believed that other humans are intrinsically valuable, but this worth has been limited to small groups of people: family members or the rich and powerful. Things changed with the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the middle class. Suddenly, a substantial proportion of the population gained power and demanded to be treated as equals. Democracy took hold. It was a revolution in human worth.
The same thing happened in the 20th century with the woman’s rights movement, arguably made possible by technological advancements in household tasks (washing machines etc) freeing women up to become productive members of the labour force. I’m not denying that these social movements also required consistent protest and struggle. My - admittedly very cynical - point is that human societies only seem to care and respect individuals when they become too powerful and influential to ignore.
The explosion of wealth and resources born out of the Industrial Revolution created the conditions for treating all humans as having equal basic worth. 250 years later, that’s still pretty much where we’re at. But that might all be about to change.
Since the 1980s, Western nations have witnessed a gradual “hollowing-out” of the middle class, partly due to neoliberal ideologies that began with the Regan and Thatcher administrations, but also due to technological and manufacturing economies booming elsewhere: in particular China and other Asian nations. These countries have witnessed an “emerging” middle class, lifting millions out of poverty.
I’m not going to get into the international politics of any of that. My point is that the hollowing-out of the middle class in the West has had major consequences, most notably the rise of populism and anti-democratic movements. When it feels as if size of the economic pie is fixed then fights break out over who deserves what. Cue Brexit, Trumpism, Orbán, and all the rest.
The scariest part of all this, for me, is what happens if this hollowing-out of the middle class continues indefinitely. This is what many theorists suggest could happen over the next few decades with the rise of AI and mass technological unemployment.
This year’s Reith Lectures, given by Stuart Russel (linked above), touches on this point. In the 3rd lecture of the excellent series, Russel argues that AI could well end up doing most skilled jobs in the foreseeable future, from medicine to coding. Whereas previously in history, technological unemployment has always freed up humans to re-skill and do new (often safer, better) jobs, that might not happen this time round for an obvious reason: AI will be better at doing all the new jobs too. This would be mass technological unemployment on an unprecedented scale.
Which is bad news for people having equal basic worth. With an almost completely hollowed-out middle class, we’re likely to find ourselves back in a society that looks more like a plutocracy - where a few extremely rich people have all the power and everyone else is voiceless. In that scenario, I suspect we’ll go back to thinking there are two very different types of human beings: the worthy and the worthless.
But wait, there’s hope! In his lecture, Russel goes on to discuss whether humans will still be able to do some jobs better than AI. Other theorists have pointed out that humans are likely to remain better at doing jobs that require empathy and care, like being a therapist or a nurse. Of course, we can’t all be therapists and nurses. But Russel argues that these kinds of jobs are just the tip of the iceberg of what’s possible.
Essentially, Russel advocates in favour of an entire “wellbeing economy” - one where the majority of humans have skilled jobs designed to make people happy. This, he argues, is something that we’ll be able to do better than AI. Not the surface rewards people get from social media algorithms, but actual, face-to-face, caring relationships.
It’s a strange twist on what we currently think is most “useful” or “worthwhile”. We tend to think that musicians, poets, writers, yoga teachers and thought leaders are all very well, but aren’t really useful like engineers and doctors are. But what Russel stresses is that, potentially quite soon, AI will be able to do all the useful stuff. Which will free up most people to follow in the wake of the poets and therapists.
The question is whether we’ll be able to grow this new economy fast enough. It will take some fairly radical policies - such as universal basic income, healthcare and lifelong education - to enable people to re-skill and create services focused on people’s social and emotional wellbeing. The alternative is that we degenerate into a two-tier society - the worthy and the worthless - where the latter may well be able to rely on AI technology to meet their basic needs but have no say on how society is run.
If all this sounds a bit too sci-fi for your liking, we have plenty of reason to put these policies in place now. The ideas of universal basic income and universal basic services have been gaining popularity since the beginning of the pandemic. Implementing them would not only create a more equal society, but it would also help with the economic stagnation and technological employment witnessed since the 1980s. And it would provide the foundation for building a future wellbeing economy, where every member of society has a genuinely worthwhile part to play.
Feel free, as always to leave a comment below or reply directly if you have anything you’d like to add - all human thoughts are very much welcome :-)