Space Industry and Business News
SPACE TRAVEL
Don't let tech gurus decide the future: Nobel winner Simon Johnson
Don't let tech gurus decide the future: Nobel winner Simon Johnson
By Marie-Morgane LE MOEL
Paris (AFP) Oct 23, 2024

Should our future by decided by the bosses of big tech firms? For Nobel economics prize winner Simon Johnson, giving too much power to a handful of billionaires will come at the expense of public interest.

The British-American economist who teaches at MIT also stressed that the development of artificial intelligence (AI) should benefit less qualified workers.

Automation and its impact upon jobs is one of Johnson's favourite elements in the relationship between democracy and economic prosperity, the subject which won him the Nobel alongside Turkish-American economist Daron Acemoglu and British-American James Robinson.

AFP spoke with Johnson by telephone and the interview has been edited for length.

Your work looks at the link between democratic institutions and economic progress, but in Western nations many are turning to populist movements as they feel they are missing out on growth. How do you explain this?

I was actually in France during your recent elections... I'm not an expert on France, but from those conversations and my direct observation it seems to me that even in more prosperous parts of France... people are disappointed, they're frustrated, they feel that democracy was not delivered...

So this failure to deliver results to people is a problem, and yes, of course we have to address it, and we have to address it by creating more good jobs, and that's the fundamental foundation of everything. A job where your productivity is higher, your pay is higher, and your working conditions and living conditions are better than they were in the past, or better than it was for your parents... And if any system makes reasonable promises on such things and fails to deliver, yeah, I think you should expect some disappointment and some blowback.

Will AI raise the productivity and the wages of low-skilled workers, or will it become a way, what we call excessive automation, where you basically fire the workers from your grocery store, replace them with self-checkout kiosks?

Who profits from AI in that case? Better-educated workers?

Let's be entirely honest... AI is mostly beneficial for the big tech companies. In any moment like this, the people who envisage technology, the vision that shapes technology is absolutely decisive. And these people, of course, at the moment are regarded as the heroes. But I think we have to ask, should we put so much power in the hands of one or two or three or a small number of men?

Don't let the big tech gurus dominate what gets developed and how it's used and how it impacts jobs... You will get their vision of the future. And for their wealth, not for you, not for your people, not for your community...

Is more regulation of Big Tech needed?

The business model of Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Alphabet (Google) and a few other companies, it's driven by digital advertising. The way digital advertising works is it grabs your attention, it makes you upset, it manipulates your emotions. This is bad for mental health, it's very bad for children, by the way, and it's terrible for democracy, because what they want is to get you really worked up and angry at other people and shouting at them and behaving in a way that ... everybody would not behave in person. So we should come to realise that digital advertising is like tobacco and junk food.

I'm not proposing to ban it, I don't think that would work, but it should be taxed heavily. Anyway, our (with Daron Acemoglu) proposal is for a pretty high tax on digital advertising, and that would generate about $200 billion in additional revenue for the United States, which is a significant amount of money... We would suggest that, you know, Congress could put some of this tax money into mental health, including children's mental health.

And in any case, pushing these companies to change their business model and rely less on digital advertising would be good for many, on many fronts, but including on the democracy front... We've got to de-escalate, we've got to de-polarize, we've got to go back to finding common ground.

Related Links
Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters
Tweet

RELATED CONTENT
The following news reports may link to other Space Media Network websites.
SPACE TRAVEL
Mesoscale Discoveries in Ferroelectric Materials Could Revolutionize Electronics
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 01, 2024
In electronic technologies, critical material properties change in response to stimuli like voltage or current. Scientists strive to understand these changes at various scales, from the nanoscale to the microscale. However, the often-overlooked mesoscale - spanning 10 billionths to 1 millionth of a meter - is now coming into focus. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, in collaboration with Rice University and DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ... read more

SPACE TRAVEL
India's green fashion lovers switch to secondhand

Advances in 3D-printed concrete boost strength, durability, and eco-friendly potential

Successful test could lead to discovery of element 120

Cage rage: How AI still divides actors and studios

SPACE TRAVEL
Eutelsat Group launches 20 OneWeb satellites to expand LEO Network

Intelsat and US Army Complete pilot program for Managed Satellite Communication Services

ViaSat-3 F1 Now Providing Services to Government Customers

SWIFT marks key advancement in Lockheed Martin and Altera partnership

SPACE TRAVEL
SPACE TRAVEL
GMV GSharp leads globally in precise GNSS corrections

LEO satellites hold the key to resilient, interference-free navigation

China launches two more satellites for Beidou navigation system

SpaceX launches European Galileo satellites to medium Earth orbit

SPACE TRAVEL
German flying taxi startup to file for bankruptcy

Hydrogen aviation has to be done properly or not at all

US regulator finalizes air taxi rules

Navy identifies 2 female pilots killed in fighter jet crash in Washington state

SPACE TRAVEL
SCALE Nanotech reveals advanced GMOD technology for drones, avionics, and space

Taiwan's TSMC stops shipments to client after chips sent to Huawei

Taiwan's TSMC stops shipments to client after chips sent to Huawei

SKhynix posts record quarterly profit on strong AI demand

SPACE TRAVEL
Planet Lab launches analysis-ready PlanetScope for time-series and machine learning applications

Future of Copernicus Sentinel Expansion missions secured

NASA's C-130 aircraft en route to india in support of NISAR mission

The View from Space Keeps Getting Better

SPACE TRAVEL
East DR Congo grapples with Chinese gold mining firms

Chair of global plastics talks pledges deal next month

Indian capital chokes as 'hazardous' air pollution returns

NGO urges Albania to 'transparently' probe suspected toxic waste

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.