Labor automation for fair cooperation: Why and how machines should provide meaningful work for all

By affecting work, resources, organizations, and people's lives, automation processes can be disruptive of the basic structure of society. Nonetheless, we may benefit from this disruption, as automation may offer opportunities to make social cooperation fairer. Just as philosophers have addressed the problem of which values and principles should regulate the distribution of goods, so we may consider the problem of the values and principles guiding technological change with regard to work. Indeed, automation is often addressed from a distributive perspective. A prevailing concern in the debate is about making sure that the technologically unemployed will not lose access to income through unconditional redistributive policies, while some have suggested policies like a “robot tax” to disincentivize companies' investment in labor-saving devices. While crucial given the massive increase in profits afforded by automation and the inequalities that go with it, concerns about income are not the only ones raised by automation. Without underestimating their relevance, in this article I leave aside problems about income to focus on automation from the perspective of work. That is, my concern here is on social cooperation from the perspective of contribution instead of distribution, within a framework that may be called technological contributive justice. If UBI advocates expect everyone to benefit from automation in their income, the contributive perspective postulates that everyone should benefit from automation in their work. There are three main reasons behind this shift. First, even in a world in which income were unconditionally accessible to all, there would be the problem of how to fairly organize the un-automated socially necessary labor (e.g., waste collection, care work, etc.). I call this the “somebody's got to do it” problem. It cannot be solved by merely reallocating income, because it concerns the division of labor itself and its norms. Second, by conceptualizing social cooperation only as a matter of markets and distribution but not production, we are not able to see what happens with regard to what people do besides what they own. But this matters too when it comes to pursuing our life plans (see Section 4) as well as the effects on our aims, aspirations, and character (see Section 3.1). Finally, even if work were completely automatable, we would most likely still consider it undesirable to fully automate certain tasks, such as child care or teaching. On the other hand, normative thinking about automation often takes the form of utopias of “full automation.” Recent examples include ideas of “fully automated luxury communism” (Bastani, 2019) or a or “post-work” views world. A fully automated world, Danaher (2019b) argues, would allow us to pursue a life free from the pressures of economic demands and to enjoy activities for their own sake, much like playing games. From the premise that work is “structurally bad,” he draws the conclusion that we should retreat from work, and the prospect of full automation is convenient to this purpose. This is what he calls a “withdrawal” strategy that disengages from work and its demands altogether. While captivating, post-work arguments rely on a debatable premise: that work will, in fact, end. This is by no means certain and, as such, is not falsifiable. There is much controversy around this issue and there are several nuances to consider. In this article, I develop the point that given this uncertainty, we should redirect our attention to the opportunities that hybrid cooperation may bring about for a fairer society. This requires us to reframe the problem of automation from one of whether future joblessness will take place and is desirable, to one of the preferable ways to realize hybrid cooperation. Thus, in this article I pursue an alternative “transformative” strategy, aimed at changing the structures of work instead of merely withdrawing from them. To this end, I explore an alternative ideal, which I call “fair hybrid cooperation,” according to which we should arrange the automation processes that affect labor in such a way that provides meaningful work for all. This ideal assumes an always-evolving, hybrid cooperation scenario between humans and machines rather than one of “human obsolescence” (Danaher, 2019a). In this ideal, machines help us realize forms of cooperation that make meaningful work possible for all, rather than reserving it only for the few, as is currently the case, or anticipate a mere replacement scenario. The article proceeds as follows. First, I discuss the efficiency motives driving current automation processes (Section 2). Then, I explain why efficiency should not be the overriding value orienting automation choices and why the motives of automation deserve further normative scrutiny (3). Automation processes, I argue, are part of the basic structure of society, to which considerations of justice apply. Given the structural interdependence between humans and technology in social cooperation, we may refer to it as a system of “hybrid cooperation.” Following on from this, I consider “fair hybrid cooperation” as an alternative value co-orienting automation priorities (3). Fair hybrid cooperation is achieved when the organizational arrangements between humans and machines—and between humans themselves as a of technological not and of certain in their I some examples through a “fair hybrid cooperation to how this ideal may in the world. 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I have addressed the problem of the why of automation. 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This be an of labor automation pursuing cooperation rather than mere economic It be that automation well not be a but because it is a structural we have for A to ways to in to that automation choices are and should not be or in pursuing alternative values to economic with pressures would in or It would be to that normative considerations such as in this article may the behind automation in the world. While this is to to the normative of concerns for some can be to at the First, it is that when it comes to distributive the structural of processes and the pressures of a do not us from ways to and for the of distribution of and the of for By it is to see why this should not with regard to work and automation. 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Given its structural interdependence with social cooperation may be to be a this automation normative The contributive a to organizational forms and to preferable Fair hybrid cooperation is to the normative at our and to when it comes to labor automation This perspective the focus of the debate from in a future to the of technology for cooperation. In its current in work do not benefit are for the of a scenario of meaningful work for the The hybrid cooperation ideal instead at technological change with the of making meaningful work for all. I to and at the of of and in in of and to and for for is The no of for the is of and at the main is and social with a focus on the of work and attention to social inequalities and technological

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