Economists’ model links automation to risk of repressive scenarios
Economists Daron Acemoglu, Mehdi Shadmehr and Arda Gitmez modeled in their working paper Automation and Repression how increasing automation and inequality can affect political decisions. As ABC News Australia reports, the authors considered a situation in which, under a credible threat of an uprising over the consequences of automation, the state may choose between redistribution and repression.
Automation and redistribution
In the model, workers attempt to coordinate an uprising caused by inequality between capital and labor, while the so-called capitalist state seeks to prevent it. The authors assume that as automation increases, greater redistribution is needed to mitigate its disruptive consequences.
Under this scenario, the tax burden on capital owners rises along with the level of automation. Therefore, repression, whose cost in the model is a fixed share of output, may become a more attractive option than redistribution, whose cost increases.
The researchers called it a new conclusion of their work that automation and repression can complement and reinforce each other. According to the model, if there is a credible threat of an uprising, society may eventually shift to a repressive scenario. In one extension of the model, the authors also described a case in which democratic decision-making gradually becomes less acceptable to capital owners, which may lead to an anti-democratic coup.
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Surveillance technologies in Australia
The article mentions statements by Mo Gawdat, former chief commercial officer of Google X. He spoke about a possible world with increased control, surveillance and the forced subjugation of people who lost their jobs because of automation.
The authors of the paper noted that their study is only a first step in examining the relationship between political regimes and technological choice. They proposed that future research take into account lobbying, political donations and other forms of influence on democracy, as well as examine how the development of artificial intelligence may change politics.
Against the backdrop of these discussions, Australia is testing new surveillance tools. New South Wales Police are testing rooftop drones in Moree, operated from Bankstown Airport. Western Australia Police are also using a real-time facial recognition system in a trial on the streets of Perth and Fremantle.
