Introduction

Artificial Intelligence and its impact on jobs are widely debated. Anyone who is adequately read on the effects of AI on the society would know this. Even though such impact is not visible or predicted to happen soon, the potential of AI to displace all the mundane jobs is inevitable. AI advancement may take away jobs like tele callers, stenographers, Paralegals, office assistants, assembly line workers in the manufacturing industry. At the same time, they also bring in new work in society. Tim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly media, strongly espoused that the future cannot lose jobs because of technology’s advancement because humans cannot be out of problems (O'Reilly 2017, 300). Quoting Keynes essay “Economic Possibilities of our Grand Children,” O'Reilly reiterates that economic pessimism creates such fears. It is mainly because of the quick advancement of technology and the probable shift in the job market (O'Reilly 2017, 299). While presenting scenarios of job losses and job generation, Kai-Fu Lee quotes Luddite fallacy to describe how a segment of scholars and academia dust the concern of ‘job-loss’ because of the advent of AI. This article provides a brief history of the Luddites and their opposition to technology adoption. It explains what Indian stance on the adoption of AI is.

Understanding Luddite fallacy and its opposition to the technology

The idea of technology and the battle of society against technological advancement has been an age-old phenomenon. Since the inception of human civilization and its gradual progress anchored to technological advances, some sections have feared technology's role. These sections are popularly known as Luddite. The term Luddite is derived from the 19th-century British weavers group called Luddites. During the industrial revolution, they cried hue on the massive loss of jobs and their livelihood. The overall result if looked from the post-industrial society seems to be that machines have successfully taken over weavers' jobs. In the process, the living conditions and the quality of life significantly improved for the next two centuries. In short, Luddite fallacy espouses that – because of the technological advancements, there would not be job loss. Still, there would be a change in the composition of jobs. They have always been sceptic or against the idea of technology and seen it as something that would take the human component out of it and replace them.

This thought process has been at the core of the Luddites group who never wanted to take the route of technological advancement. They see it antagonistic to the natural process of human growth or the natural process of evolution. After all, the technical process aspect and the rate of human adaptation differentiate the advancement of the world and the regions of the world. The last century and the century before had witnessed two far-reaching phenomenons that impact us even today. Those incidents include the ‘Industrial Revolution’ and the ‘Second World War.’ These two incidents have created new thinking of the world anchored to the technology. It made a divide among the nations with-in Europe – economically, societally, and politically. With the improvisation of shipbuilding technology and other political reasons, European powers ventured into mercantilism and finally brought colonialism. This process was possible only because of the technological superiority of the European nations.

The cause of the industrial revolution of the 18th century as brought out in the above paragraph had been one of the most critical far-reaching technology-related events. The advanced industrialized countries of the world today and those trying to catch up are based on how the countries that have adopted technology or, most importantly, the country's population. In terms of the people's friendliness in terms of accepting the technology, it is very important to understand how the section of the population opposed to technology and its role in enhancing the advancement of the nation and its citizens. This is where the countries who initiated the industrial revolution moved ahead, which later to mercantilism and colonization shaped up till the Second World War and beyond. This proves how access to technology drives human civilization and how society progresses ahead from the human civilization's regressed section in terms of the technological process. The division between the primitive, and the so-called advanced in terms of being the ruler against the ruled has a powerful and long-reaching technological story to be understood. Since the early ages, there has been the inception of technology cutting edge. Nevertheless, those times have made human civilization move ahead and embrace and grasp the times' needs. Luddites were those who wanted to pull back or afraid to change and most importantly, fearful of changing.

India, Technology and the Luddite Fallacy

Now looking at India, the Luddites dimension has an exciting dimension in terms of the socio-economic and political dimensions. In India, the most critical incidents related to the Luddites would probably come from understanding the communists in India. Post-independence the communists in Kerala and Bengal have been one of the significant blocking forces whenever there has been a talk of introducing private technology or up-gradation of service style which may have seen by the communists in India as something that would replace the human element. The introduction of computers in government offices and the throwing of them from the high windows in Kolkata was probably a grotesque site for many who wanted the role of technology to quickly take on India's social scene. Today India sitting at the throne of information technology service providing services and looking forward to catching up with the fourth industrial revolution after having missed the first three the contradictions of the communists in independent India was less of Marxist thought but more of the scepticism that what would technology hold. Another attempt at capitalism or the colonial overtures which were feared by the communist party in India. There has been an attack on private capitalism, and their intent of bringing technology from across the realm from the private entrepreneurs still face challenges in India. Therefore, the dimension of the story of Luddites and the challenge they pose is still there today.

Even today, the society of India has faced stiff competition, which can be brought with the examples of OLA, Uber which were seen by traditional cab drivers as something dangerous. The introduction of the private operators in the telecom and automobile industry has also been met with severe resistance in many quarters. Still, these same private companies have brought technology that has brought a massive change in the Indian industrial ecosystem. Although India's advent towards these sectors with the help of private operators and the cutting-edge technology is still being input such as OPPO creating 5G Lab in India after China has not made with that resistance in Karnataka where it is being established. The initial private companies that had made their strides in India in heavy industry and finance were not met with that amount of resistance. There could have been resistance, but at that time, these private companies' perception had been based on the notion that the private enterprises were necessary for the nascent steps that India needed to undertake.

However, as mentioned, individual states and political corridors, much like the Luddites have always seen technological capitalism as problematic. Especially in modern times when the world has moved into the grasp of technology capitalism. The world of today as known as FANG economy, which stands for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google is undoubtedly a changed scenario and brings in a new future threshold. Even the people like Brad Smith, CEO of Microsoft, espouse this phenomenon that the world technological economy is controlled by these big digital companies (Smith and Carol 2019). Such fear or change of status quo is exacerbated with the new emerging technologies.

Nations and businesses are making considerable investments in building AI talent and infrastructure, causing policy-makers to realize they need to move quickly to address adverse impacts that have already surfaced, as well as those still to be discovered. PWC notes that there are at least 30 countries that released AI strategies (PWC 2020). In India, though the policy emphasis was started in 2017, the year 2020 or more precisely, 2021 would become the AI year.

Income disparities and AI

Suppose the job loss is one fear which is to be addressed by the governments. In that case, another much-acclaimed concern is the income inequalities induced by the AI. Quoting Brynjolfsson and McAfee's book "The Second Machine Age," Kai-Fu-Lee argued that the United States had seen a rise in the information age's income disparities. The previous General Purpose Technologies (GPT) like electricity and steam engine have helped many workers improve their efficiency and income. The information technology GPT has increased efficiency but not the income (Lee 2018, 150). The other GPTs have deskilled the production process, but ICT favours the highly skilled. This is considered to be the root cause of future income disparities.

This income inequality is not just a factor being churned out because of the rapid technological development increase. The geopolitical factors also influence this looming concern of inequality and job loss. Three geopolitical catalysts are assisting quick adoption of AI and giving the public and stateless time to adjust with the change (Lee 2018, 153). This is considered the primary reason for the displacement of the existing jobs and rendering low skilled and middle-skilled jobless. 

1. The low physical costs about the new AI algorithms
2. Huge VC present to invest in any good a scalable idea
3. China as an example and competitor to the US, which accelerates the AI research and adoption.

In his book AI Superpowers' studies, Lee quoted' put the job loss situation at the spectrum of 9 – 50%. Oxford research which is the early one in this category put the job loss at approximately 40%, but an OECD study in 2016 put that number at 9%. World Bank predicts that automation would displace 75 million jobs and would add 133 new jobs. Garter predicts 2 million net new jobs. However, Forrester predicts job losses of 29% by 2030 with only 13% job creation to compensate.

There is such a dichotomous view on the AI induced change in the job market (Press 2019). The argument here is that the AI would not completely replace the work but automates some aspects of the work.

What is happening because of the technology in the job market?

Even though some scholars take a frivolous stand on the AI induced job loss, Luddite fallacy cannot be applied entirely to the AI scenario. It is true that the rapid change of technology and the need to upgrade our knowledge continually makes even the high skill job market very lucrative. An article in the Washington Post argues that the initial sectors taking away human jobs in this decade would be self-driving cars and the manufacturing industry (Wadhwa 2015). However, it was also opined that there would be many new jobs opening in tourism, psychology, daily care etc.   

FICCI’s skill development working group in its report stated that one of the key growth enablers for India’s is its digital infrastructure and connectivity. With the emerging technologies like big data, and AI – high skilled workers tend to be beneficial, middle-skilled jobs would get reduced, and low skill job sector would hit hard (FICCI Skill Development Committee - Working Group Initiative 2018). Tackling the latter, FICCI recommended constant reskilling, Academia-Industry collaborations notable among many to tackle the employment growth.

A report from the Center for Internet and Society recommends robot tax, and universal basic income (Jujjavarapu, Elonnai and Amber 2018). 

In the manufacturing industry, AI is being used in the intelligent plant frame (IPF) work modelling which improves the production floor's efficiency, automated warehouse units, automation of the testing process, and more. It displaces the low skilled and opens jobs for highly skilled technical persons. In India, General Electric, Panasonic (Jajjar manufacturing unit, Haryana), Boeing have set up intelligent plats which use AI in their production facilities. If all the companies went for smart manufacturing units, there would be a sudden requirement of the highly skilled workforce, even for the production floor. Quick multi-dimensional skill development should be encouraged. If people lose jobs with one skill, they should be able to switch a profession, at least temporarily.

Even though he does not support the so-called Luddite groups, Tim O'Reilly advocates Universal Basic Income (UBI) would be a solution for the AI-induced job losses (O'Reilly 2017, 305). When the world has a technology that does all the necessary jobs, there is no need for human labour. When such machines become ubiquitous, the cost of all the necessities would drastically fall, making it affordable for the state to roll out UBI. Bill Gates proposed ‘Robot Tax,’ with the idea that if a human job has been devolved to a Robot, the same should be with the tax (Walters 2017).

There are numerous alternatives proposed to avoid what Luddites fear. But the fallacy is more practical as they open up new employment sector. Most of the economists say that job may be lost for the time being. But new jobs will appear in other areas. This is what the history of the industrial revolution tell us. The industrialized economies have less unemployment though they have undertaken tremendous automation in the past. The same would happen with AI and other emerging technologies. Societies which quickly adapt to the changes would have a more significant advantage to those of Luddites.

1. FICCI Skill Development Committee - Working Group Initiative. 2018. Employer Led Models of Job Creation. FICCI. Accessed December 26, 2020. http://ficci.in/spdocument/23032/GSS-REPORt-ARTWORK-low-12-09-2018.pdf.
2. Jujjavarapu, Geethanjali, Hickok Elonnai, and Sinha Amber. 2018. AI and the Manufacturing and Services Industry in India. New Delhi: Center for Internet and Society.
3. Lee, Kai-Fu. 2018. AI Super POwers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order. NewYork: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
4. O'Reilly, Tim. 2017. That's The Future and Why it's Up to Us. Thomson Press, India.
5. Press, Gil. 2019. "Is AI Going To Be A Jobs Killer? News Reports About The Future Of Work." Forbes. July 15. Accessed December 21, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2019/07/15/is-ai-going-to-be-a-jobs-killer-new-reports-about-the-future-of-work/?sh=a9f5d2afb247.
6. PWC. 2020. PWC. Accessed November 22, 2020. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/risk-regulatory/strategic-policy/top-policy-trends/ai.html.
7. Smith, Brad, and Ann, Browne Carol. 2019. Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age. Penguin Press.
8. Wadhwa, Vivek. 2015. "Sorry, but the jobless future isn't a Luddite fallacy." The Washington Post. July 7. Accessed December 19, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/07/07/sorry-but-the-jobless-future-isnt-a-luddite-fallacy/.
9. Walters, Richard. 2017. "Bill Gates calls for income tax on robots." Financial Times. February 19. Accessed December 28, 2020. https://www.ft.com/content/d04a89c2-f6c8-11e6-9516-2d969e0d3b65.