What a great article! I think it’s so important to have specific historical examples of how technology impacted jobs, vs. speculating in a vacuum. Your emphasis on culture and dynamism is especially on point:
”For coal miners, for example, this would mean job training programs[23] that widen the aperture of cultural pride from providing coal to providing energy, even in the energy forms that will win the future. It also means reusing physical infrastructure when possible, such as the recent Berkshire Hathaway effort to convert a West Virginia coal plant into a nuclear power plant.[”
Focusing on the upside or “widening the aperture” of work people consider will matter a lot, as will just being open to change (vs. using regulation to stop it before we even fully understand it).
This also reminded me of a study that analyzed the impact of AI on taxi drivers. The key finding was that AI helped less experienced/less skilled drivers be more productive—rather than replacing drivers wholesale: ”. We find that AI improves drivers’ productivity by shortening the cruising time, and such gain is accrued only to low-skilled drivers, narrowing the productivity gap between high- and low-skilled drivers by 14%. The result indicates that AI’s impact on human labor is more nuanced and complex than a job displacement story, which was the primary focus of existing studies.”
https://docs.iza.org/dp15677.pdf
Thanks for sharing this article here.
Heike Larson
So true, Tony! Finding ways to creatively bring the study of human progress into schools is important, for so many reasons. It will be fun to work through the specifics on how we can make this happen—and to think specifically about how this teaching can inspire kids.
When you succeed tremendously with Speculative Technologies what are the most exciting changes a normal person just living their lives will see?
How will we experience the world differently in 2051? What will our homes look like? Our daily experience of work and going places? Our leisure activities? … or anything else that will be enabled by the new materials and technologies that are beyond the cutting edge now.
Or, put differently, why should people far outside the progress and tech communities be excited about this work?
I’m also very curious on what we, as a progress community, can contribute to the telling of more good, inspiring stories. If you have thoughts, please comment or get in touch: heike@therootsofprogress.org.
When I read this I felt a need to shout “YES!!” to all of this. In the past couple of weeks, as I’ve talked to people in the broader progress studies community I heard a lot of personal stories, and many of them included either influential stories (often Science Fiction books, but sometimes also historical tales of human ingenuity and invention or movies) or experiences in spaces that made possibilities real (like Disney Epcot or even museums with inspirational themes).
I’d love to hear from people in this community how these types of experiences played into their journey of being interested in scientific, industrial, technological, and human progress.
I hadn’t thought about the regional aspects, but it makes total sense, and it reminds me of this post by Paul Graham that talks about cities and ambitions: http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html
Excited that you’ll do some work on this, Matt—looking forward to reading it.
Thanks, Matt, for the thoughtful response. My key take-aways are that (1) in person events are helpful to get new relationships going because of trust & discovery, and (2) we should keep these meeting small (or create smaller sessions in larger meetings) and (3) purposefully get people together who otherwise might not talk, and ideally have them not just be passive but work on something together in those sessions. Some good initial thoughts in any case; thank you!
Anton Howes has been writing about an innovation mentality as critical in brining about the Industrial Revolution. Joel Mokyr discussed the importance of culture—the beliefs, values and preferences that influence behavior—as critical.
How do you think about our culture in the US today as it relates to innovation? Where are we strong, and where are there opportunities for improvement? I’m especially interested in how this may be changing: can we see differences in cultural attitudes across US generations? E.g., are younger people more innovation oriented now than they were decades ago—or less? And especially if less—what do you think is the best way of fostering an innovation culture especially among young people? (Or, put differently, what are the key obstacles you see?)
What learnings can we draw from your work on innovation on bringing together thinkers in progress studies? When do you think we should think about in-person gatherings and events, and when is it fine to work at a distance/via Zoom/here in the forum? As we think about events and bringing people together to learn and exchange ideas, any insights from your research on how to best structure those types of events?
In this context, Eric Gilliam had an interest post on his substack on conferences and Feynman’s take on their declining usefulness. Curious to hear if you have any thoughts based on your research as well on organizing gatherings that lead to more innovation.
Eric’s post: https://freaktakes.substack.com/p/feynman-on-journal-reviews-conferences
Thanks, Eli! This is a super helpful framing to me as I think about our role here at The Roots of Progress.
Follow-on question: when you say “researchy” do you mean academia—or do you mean groups in the more public intellectual policy space (think tanks) that take on more of an explainer rather than activist bend?
Thanks for that link, Eli. This is exactly the type of context I was looking for. It woulds like there is a regulatory hurdle here with significant potential liability if the program were to get challenged as not meeting those requirements both on the actual program design and on the documentation.
Thanks for the quick response, Eli. My follow-up is similar to Jasons: I’m wondering not so much why insurance companies don’t pay for these devices right now, but more why there isn’t a push to use them to financially reward or incentivize healthy behavior or outcomes.
For example, if it costs an insurance company $10K more to care for someone with diabetes than someone without, what if the insurer offered the patient a deal: if via non-medication means you reverse your diabetes (as measured by insulin and hemoglobin A1C or HbA1c test), we’ll pay you $5,000 (or, if they pay privately for their insurance, we’ll give you a year-end cost refund of $$).
Or, different approach: if you do specific behaviors that we know will lead to your diabetes improving, we’ll pay you a certain amount per month each month you meet the targets consistently (e.g., wear a fitness tracker and exercise 5x per week for 30 min at vigorous intensity and wear a continuous glucose monitor and stick to a 10-hour feeding window by practicing intermittent fasting for at least 20 days/month).
Of course, the details would need to be worked out and there are lots of questions (e.g., how does this work for people who are already metabolically healthy vs. those who aren’t). But there are companies playing this space at a small scale, using biofeedback and clear lifestyle incentives to improve health outcomes (albeit without insurance pay-back), such as VirtaHealth, Levels, and HealthyWage, and commercial supportive counseling programs like Noom.
Given how immense the cost of metabolic disease is for individuals and society I’m surprised that there isn’t a larger effort to use these trackers to fundamentally change how the incentives work. Wouldn’t it be better if insurance companies actually helped people get healthy, rather than pay for ongoing medication for multiple chronic diseases?
I’m really curious if anyone has done any digging on the regulatory barriers that would make it hard to make this happen. (Or maybe this is an untapped business opportunity for someone, if there aren’t any major regulatory hurdles!)
In your post from 2019 on moving the needle of progress, you mention health (or better, wellness) as one of four key levers toward progress, and you highlight patient empowerment and using data from wearable devices as potentially big opportunity.
Do you have any thoughts on what is stopping this from happening? It seems that using data to empower people to live healthier is a win all around: better quality of life/more energy/less pain for the individual, lower medical cost for the insurance and employer, and higher worker productivity. Why aren’t we, for example, seeing health insurance plans that incentivize healthy behavior that can be tracked via wearables and provide meaningful financial incentives (similar to safe driver programs)?
Wow, Evan—what an amazing essay this is! As a former SF resident I had not mental picture of 101 municipalities but of course am very aware of the challenges. The New York analogy is great and super helpful.
The solution makes total sense—and yet it’s also clear that inertia and self-interest of bureaucrats and local politicians will work against it. What do you think will it take to get an advocate (or a group of advocates) like Green in NYC to get this going? (I guess getting your essay as much readership as possible with SF people is a good first step!)