as before . Their resulting revenues will then likewise be the same . The use of AI will save the employers 50 percent of their former total wage bills ( less the cost of implementing AI ) and those savings will be kept by employers as added profit for them . That added profit was an effective incentive for the employer to implement AI .
If we imagine for a moment that the employees had the power that capitalism confers exclusively on employers , they would choose to use AI in an altogether different way . They would use AI , fire no one , but instead cut all employees ’ working days by 50 percent while keeping their wages the same . Once again keeping our example simple , this would result in the same output as before the use of AI , and the same price for the goods or services and revenue inflow would follow . The profit margin would remain the same after the use of AI as before ( minus the cost of implementing the technology ). The 50 percent of employees ’ previous workdays that are now available for their leisure would be the benefit they accrue . That leisure — freedom from work — is their incentive to use AI differently from how employers did .
One way of using AI yields added profits for a few , while the other way yields added leisure / freedom to many . Capitalism rewards and thus encourages the employers ’ way . Democracy points the other way . The technology itself is ambivalent . It can be used either way .
Thus , it is simply false to write or say — as so many do these days — that AI threatens millions of jobs or jobholders . Technology is not doing that . Rather the capitalist system organizes enterprises into employers versus employees and thereby uses technological progress to increase profit , not employees ’ free time .
Throughout history , enthusiasts celebrated most major technological advances because of their “ laborsaving ” qualities . Introducing new technologies would deliver less work , less drudgery , and less demeaning labor . The implication was that “ we ” — all people — would benefit . Of course , capitalists ’ added profits from technical advances no doubt brought them more leisure . However , the added leisure new technologies made possible for the employee majority was mostly denied to them . Capitalism — the profit-driven system — caused that denial .
Today , we face the same old capitalist story . The use of AI can ensure much more leisure for the working class , but capitalism instead subordinates AI to profiteering . Politicians shed crocodile tears over the scary vista of jobs lost to AI . Pundits exchange estimates of how many millions of jobs will be lost if AI is adopted . Gullible liberals invent new government programs aimed to lessen or soften AI ’ s impact on employment . Once again , the unspoken agreement is not to question whether and how the problem is capitalism nor to pursue the possibility of system change as that problem ’ s solution .
In an economy based on worker coops , employees would collectively be their own employers . Capitalism ’ s core structure of enterprises — the employer versus employee system — would no longer prevail . Implementing technology would then be a collective decision democratically arrived at . With the absence of capitalism ’ s employer versus employee division , the decision about when , where , and how to use AI , for example , would become the task and responsibility of the employees as a collective whole . They might consider profitability of the enterprise among their goals for using AI , but they would certainly also consider the gain in leisure that this makes possible . Worker coops make decisions that differ from those of capitalist enterprises . Different economic systems affect and shape the societies in which they operate differently .
Across capitalism ’ s history , employers and their ideologues learned how best to advocate for technological changes that could enhance profits . They celebrated those changes as breakthroughs in human ingenuity deserving everyone ’ s support . Individuals who suffered due to these technological advances were dismissed as , “ the price to pay for social progress .” If those who suffered fought back , they were denounced for what was seen as anti-social behavior and were often criminalized .
As with previous technological breakthroughs , AI places on society ’ s agenda both new issues and old contentious ones . AI ’ s importance is NOT limited to productivity gains it achieves and job losses it threatens . AI also challenges — yet again — the social decision to preserve the employer-employee division as the basic organization of enterprises . In capitalism ’ s past , only employers made the decisions whose results employees had to live with and accept . Maybe with AI , employees will demand to make those decisions via a system change beyond capitalism toward a workercoop based alternative .
34 x The Trial Lawyer