Artificial Intelligence and Human Flourishing

• Author: Charles M. A. Clark,Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12356
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Published date: 01 September 2020

Artificial Intelligence and

Human Flourishing

By Charles M. a. Clark* and aleksandr V. GeVorkyan†

abstraCt. The polarization of the debate about artificial intelligence

(AI) pulls in two mutually exclusive directions of either complete

takeover of future jobs by omnipotent algorithms or an absolute

bliss with robots at work while humans reap the benefits of endless

vacation. Add this to conflicting views of work as either a disutility

to be minimized or as an essential component in human flourishing,

and it is no wonder a wide range of views are expressed on AI and

human flourishing. The literature, from Smith to Keynes and beyond,

offers some initial methodological guidance. Still, the true social and

economic implications of an AI-type environment in production and

labor markets are yet to be fully understood. This article argues that

neither of the predictions are realistic. Instead, the global economy may

be passing, albeit at a faster speed, through a phase of technological

change, similar to those experienced before. While a nuanced balance

is emerging, with an emphasis on human skills in future employment,

the benefits may not be equitably distributed, as equality of

opportunities for human development may not be reachable, though

visible, in the AI-driven society. Hence, as firms seek efficiency gains,

much weight is shifted onto governments and quasi-private entities in

maintaining decent living standards conducive to human flourishing in

unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article reviews

various popular concerns and advances new public policy measures

aimed at tackling some of the immediate fears of automation.

***

[J]ust when humanity possesses the scientific and technical capacities to

achieve a justly distributed well-being, in accordance with how it was

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 79, No. 4 (September, 2020).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12356

© 2020 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

*Professor of economics, Department of Economics & Finance, Tobin College of

Business, St. John’s University. Email: clarkc@stjohns.edu

†Henry George Chair of economics and associate professor, Department of Economics

& Finance, Tobin College of Business, St. John’s University. Email: gevorkya@stjohns.edu

1308 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology

delivered by God, we observe instead an exacerbation of conflicts and an

increase in inequality.

Pope Francis (2019)

I. Introduction

The prospects of a world without work has long been a utopian dream.

Outside of God providing manna from heaven while the Israelites

escape from Egypt (Exodus 16:1-36), the primary way humans have

“freed” themselves from having to work is by the forced servitude or

enslavement of another group of humans. The promise, we are told,

of “artificial intelligence” (AI) is that it can turn all humans into “mas-

ters,” with machines being the servants (Danaher 2019). The fear is

that, once machines gain “general intelligence,” they will become the

masters, and humanity will be enslaved. The reality of AI is most likely

somewhere between a world of prosperity without effort and the plot

for The Terminator or similar movies.

Yet to fully evaluate the implications of AI we must first reflect on

the meaning of work and its relation to the human experience. Do

we want a world without work? Or is work somehow necessary for

human flourishing? Is AI just another technological development, no

different from the wheel and other major technological developments

in human history? These questions are based on how we understand

human nature and what constitutes human flourishing. How we un-

derstand these issues will shape how we will investigate the economic

and social implications of AI.

In the next section, this article will look at the relationship be-

tween work and human flourishing, contrasting the methodological

perspectives of neoclassical economic theory and Catholic social

thought. We are not contrasting two competing economic theories,

but instead two “visions” of human nature and society upon which

economic theories can be constructed. In the third section, we will

briefly examine some examples of economists looking at earlier major

technological changes. We will show that taking a broader view of

human nature and society—as Catholic social thought does—raises

1309Artificial Intelligence and Human Flourishing

issues economists typically ignore, issues that are fundamental to the

concerns raised by technological unemployment and AI. Section IV

examines the contemporary context of measuring AI impact on the

economy and labor markets. Section V explores one of the most crit-

ical aspects of AI’s recent march, namely, the problem of deepening

social and economic inequalities. Section VI discusses the polarity

of outcomes as we assess the key implications of AI on workers, the

economy, public policy, and human flourishing, as well as unprec-

edented challenges raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. Section VII

concludes the article.

II. Human Nature and Work

Artificial intelligence is not the beginning of this story. In the early

1800s, the “machinery question” was one of the central political

issues, one that has shaped the history of economics in profound

ways (Berg 1980). The replacing of skilled workers with machines and

with unskilled women and children created not only great economic

disruption but also considerable political unrest, most famously with

the Luddite Riots of 1813–1817. Destroying machines was made a cap-

ital offense. Most economists at the time felt that the new technology

would not cause a negative impact on employment, but there were

notable exceptions: Sismonde, Say, and Malthus all saw possible nega-

tive effects, and David Ricardo famously pronounced that the working

class could be harmed by the introduction of machines. Yet all (except

Sismonde) thought that the compensating gains of the new technol-

ogy, in terms of cheaper goods and England’s competitive advantages,

outweighed any negative effects.

In 1803, Jean-Baptiste Say ([1834] 2017: 52) raised what is one of

the central concerns of AI today, the possibility that machines could

entirely replace workers:

It may be allowable to add, that viewing human labor and machinery in

the aggregate, in the supposition of the extreme case, viz. that machinery

should be brought to supersede human labor altogether, yet the numbers

of mankind would not be thinned; for the sum total of products would

be the same, and there would probably be less suffering to the poorer