Communism and other state-controlled economies have always wrestled with the problem of “useless mouths” If the state feeds, then who shall it feed? The easy answer: only those who work. Some Marxists felt that there was a reciprocal obligation to work. No work, no grub. “There can be no stronger or more pressing motive to work for the society in which all participate than this unshakable sense of communal service. But where this sense is lacking and physical disability or mental laziness engenders a shirker, then the collective pressure on that shirker, male or female, becomes severe indeed. There is as little tolerance of useless mouths in a communal society as there is in a beehive.”
The phrase “useless mouths” is most associated with the Nazis, especially their eugenics and euthanasia programs. The Third Reich killed those it considered liabilities during the 1930s and especially during WW2, as food was scarce. “But mass killings were already well underway before the 1942 (Wannsee) conference. Doctors had been sterilizing people diagnosed as genetically ill since 1934, and systematic mass murder of such people had been taking place since 1939 as part of what became known as Action T-4. … Euthanasia began with the denunciation of people as useless mouths to feed.”
The term of art was Unnütze Esser — (lit. “useless eaters” or “useless mouths”). It became a designation for Jews unable to work, people with serious medical problems or disabilities, and other Untermenschen not deemed to be useful to Germany. While Nazi Germany is long gone, the problem of useless mouths threatens to reappear with the advent of automation and artificial intelligence. In certain tasks human labor has long been superseded. No man can compete with a bulldozer. AI has taken it to another level. Once humans were the best chess players. “But as the years have gone by, machine intelligence has continued on its inexorable exponential upward trajectory, leaving human chess players far behind.”
What happens when the majority of humanity are useless mouths or, worse, useless minds? So far AI and automation has only augmented human labor and increased its productivity, and many believe that augmentation will continue to be its role. But some are now convinced that AI is now so far superior to humanity in certain fields that humans would simply have nothing to add. Some of the jobs now threatened are:
- Data entry and processing.
- Manufacturing and assembly line jobs: Automation has been replacing jobs in this field for decades, and the use of AI in the form of robotics is growing.
- Customer service and support jobs: With the use of chatbots and other AI-powered communication tools, customer support is increasingly being automated.
- Transportation and delivery jobs: Self-driving vehicles and drones may take over delivery in the near future.
- Administrative and clerical jobs, except government positions that are politically protected.
Once AI can get up on its own and walk around and observe then the world becomes its training set and its capabilities will expand dramatically. That possibility is now at hand with the advent of plugins that will allow it to interact with other services, potentially drones, mobile robots and other sources of information. Were this to happen, “augmentation” could rapidly give way to replacement. Some people would literally become economically obsolete.
One potential solution to the displacement of workers by automation is to adopt a Universal Basic Income (UBI), where everyone in society is guaranteed an income regardless of employment. People might use their unlimited free time to pursue other interests since it would be pointless to retrain for the old careers. Those might be volunteering, artistic pursuits, or caring for family members. These activities may not be valued in terms of monetary compensation but can still provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment.
In a completely automated society, the ownership of the economy would depend on the economic system in place. If the society was capitalist, the robotic economy would likely be owned by individuals or corporations, presumably taxed by the government to provide a UBI for the economically “useless mouths.” In a socialist or communist system, the means of production would be owned by the state. Since state-owned factories have historically been less productive than private enterprise the UBI provided by socialist/communist robots might prove lower.
But essentially the arrangement would be the same. Greater and greater percentages of the population — regardless of whether they are capitalist or socialist — would be dependent on the dole. In exchange for a UBI, governments will require individuals to contribute to society in some way, such as through community service etc., but universal idleness might be socially destructive. One obvious dangers to a society on permanent vacation is a sense of loss of control. As in the famous Soviet sci-fi novel “We,” everything is provided by the Benefactor, in this case the Robot–and your life, no longer meaningful, is not even your own. There is also the threat of boredom. Long-term welfare recipients may find themselves with a lot of free time and little to do, which can lead to boredom and a lack of purpose.
Lastly, there is the danger of resource overconsumption. If artificial intelligence becomes better each year, the economy and by implication the UBI would keep growing unless some artificial cap on the resources it could access were imposed. The useless mouths would just get better games, more food, and better public housing until political pressure to reduce population comes from the Greens (assuming humans are still involved in politics).
When economies grow, they typically require more resources such as energy, water, and materials, and produce more waste and pollution. This will stoke fears of climate change, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity etc among the Woke, who will presumably be advising the state — all for the sake of people who are no longer even economically relevant. Various approaches such as circular economy models, renewable energy, and zero-waste strategies will be tried, but ultimately there will be a conflict between resource use and generosity of UBI. The answer is less people. “AI,” according to an opinion piece in the Times of Israel, “could help us reduce population phenomenally.” Some scientists are convinced. Fewer babies and more robots are our ticket to the future.
But there is a hidden danger to relying entirely on the wisdom of the Benefactor. One of the main limitations of AI is that it lacks creativity, intuition, and diversity that biological life brings. Biological diversity can play an important role in discovering truth when the truth is in the outlier. The statement “information is surprise” refers to the idea that information is only meaningful when it is unexpected or surprising. When information is predictable or expected, it does not provide new knowledge or insights. The Benefactor may miss a catastrophe; never see it coming. But one can easily imagine that governments, which might be paying the dole to everyone by taxing automation, might not recognize this and decide to quit subsidizing human life deemed not worth the resources ripped from the womb of the planet.
Are you a useless mind? How could you know?
Books: Against the Great Reset: Eighteen Theses Contra the New World Order Kindle Edition by Michael Walsh (editor). In this timely and necessary book, Michael Walsh has gathered trenchant critical perspectives on the Great Reset from eighteen eminent writers and journalists from around the world. Though I wouldn’t exactly consider myself an eminent writer, mine is one of the 18 chapters in this book, and I think it’s worthwhile.
Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb by George Feifer.
Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 by Ian W. Toll.
Year Zero: A History of 1945 by Ian Buruma.
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