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#AI#Automation#Productivity#Economy: "In the 1980s, the most prominent view was that unionized firms had less incentive to invest in innovation and new technologies. Because unions would ensure that workers received most of the benefits, the thinking went, investors had little incentive to spend on R&D. But there are several other ways of thinking about this says John Van Reenen, an economist at the London School of Economics.
Firms that make good use of new technologies usually pay more because they’re more productive and profitable. Van Reenen says that, under the right circumstances, unions can help ensure that workers have the power to claim some share of those profits in the form of higher wages. In one paper, he quotes John Hodge, former head of the U.S. Smelters, who once said, “We won’t work against the machine if we get a fair share of the plunder.”
Input from workers — which unions often facilitate — can also steer companies toward more productive (and worker-friendly) uses of AI. “There is an emerging view that bottom-up innovation is going to be the best way to figure out the best uses of AI,” says Kinder. “So there is a business case for keeping employees in the loop.”
And worker input can guard against a phenomenon that MIT’s Acemoglu has warned about in his research and in a recent book: “so-so technology.” The idea is that companies sometimes automate just enough to replace workers, but without creating big improvements in productivity. Acemoglu uses the example of self-checkout kiosks: They work well enough to take work away from cashiers, but not so well that they provide a major boost to the economy that could fuel demand elsewhere."