Does history have something to teach us in our relationship with artificial intelligence?
We all hoped that robots, AIs and automation would one day free us from drudgery and routine work so that we could devote ourselves to creativity, knowledge and decision making. The reality is that waiters, stockers, plumbers and those employed in almost any other physical activity can breathe easy, AI will not take away their livelihoods. On the other hand, copywriters, graphic designers, advertisers, accountants, programmers and middle managers in general are watching with concern as AI takes over jobs. In the worst case there are layoffs, in the best case there is an effective devaluation of the work of these people. In the future there may (or may not) be a reallocation of resources, as people and the economic system adapt to the new economy, but it is practically indisputable that along the way millions of people will be temporarily or permanently unemployed. What are we going to do with these fellow citizens?
Although surprising at first glance, this has been experienced before in history and there are a few interesting lessons to be learned.
In the late Roman Republic (the time of Julius Caesar, as we understand it) the agrarian economy underwent a profound transformation. Territorial expansion and wars provided a huge number of slaves, who became the main labor force in the latifundia (large tracts of land) owned by the senatorial aristocracy and other potentates.
Landowners who used slaves had lower production costs than small free peasants. Slaves received no wages, only basic sustenance, and could be intensively exploited. The small landowners, unable to compete with the prices of the products of the large estates and often indebted (sometimes because of compulsory military service that kept them away from their land), were forced to sell their plots, generally to the same landowners who had brought them to ruin.
This provoked a rural exodus. The massive influx of dispossessed peasants into Rome generated an impoverished and starving urban population. To avoid riots, criminality and maintain a minimum of social stability, Roman governments were forced to support these crowds with state subsidies of grain. These subsidies were known as annona.
At the time of Augustus there were between 150 and 200,000 registered beneficiaries in Rome, who received about 35kg of free grain per month. 1 While this was enough for a single person to survive, it was insufficient for a family (only males could be beneficiaries). This meant that there were probably two types of beneficiaries: on the one hand, the urban working pater familias , for whom the free grain was a welcome supplement and, in times of scarcity, an essential cushion. On the other hand, the unprofessional citizen who lived off the annona. The latter, generally a person without professional skills, tried to earn some supplementary income with irregular jobs, often for gangs and mafias.
State subsidy, advantages and disadvantages
It is easy to suppose that as long as the industrious citizen predominated over the idle, everything went well. But when, as a result of a war, Rome was filled with refugees and landless veteran soldiers, the city had a huge idle population that easily became dependent on clientelistic networks with dishonest political objectives.
Political instability
Rome was never a democracy, but its political system did have debate and some checks and balances (rotating consuls, tribunes of the plebs, etc.) that guaranteed some justice, equity and rights to its citizens. Towards the end of the republic, the possibility of manipulating large masses of citizens by their dependence on the annona contributed to the replacement of debate by violence against the political adversary. Gaius Gracchus, Saturninus, Clodius or even Julius Caesar serve as examples of both mass manipulators and targets of political violence: they gained power by handing out grain to the people and ended up assassinated. This undermined the institutions until the republic simply ceased to be viable.
However, once the republic disappeared, the annona became a pillar of government during the empire. The free distribution of wheat was consolidated as a mechanism of political stability and social control, ensuring the loyalty of the urban plebs. So it was until the decline of the empire stopped the arrival of new slaves and, finally, with the loss of North Africa, the breadbasket of Rome, was the end of the annona and, soon after, the end of the Western empire.
The lesson we can learn is that when there is distributed power, the subsidy of the masses is a weapon in the hands of those who know how to apply it best and therefore generates great instability. However, when there is undisputed power, it takes over all the levers and the annona becomes a stabilizing element.
Benefits for the proletariat
The proletari was a Roman citizen so poor that the only thing he could contribute to the state was his offspring. As such, the proletari were the main recipients of state aid. At the end of the day, did this aid really benefit them or did it simply keep them marinated in a never-ending limbo?
Did not having to worry about subsistence help some of these individuals to train themselves, invent something, be creative and make a special contribution to society? Let us remember, returning for a moment to the present day, that one of the main claims of the supporters of the universal basic wage is that the beneficiaries, once their basic needs are covered, invest in their training and try to improve their environment.
This does not seem to be the case of the Roman proletarian. Juvenal, Seneca or Pliny the Elder seem to agree that the annona served more to corrupt the idle multitudes than to allow them to improve themselves. Did any beneficiary know how to take advantage of it to prosper? Undoubtedly, but as far as we know, no new breed of thinkers, artists or poets emerged from the panem et circenses. Rome never intended the proletari to be anything other than a docile social group that supplied good foot soldiers to the state. So perhaps the lesson here is that if you want to improve the lives of citizens, it is not enough to cover their basic needs, but you have to provide them with a goal, incentives and means to initiate their improvement.
Parallels with the present day
Let’s trade slaves for robotization and AI, landowners for tech corporations and free peasants for ourselves. Just as slaves producing for Roman aristocrats drove small farmers out of business, AI and automation will reduce well-paying jobs and send many citizens into unemployment or underemployment. The state will inevitably have to intervene by increasing social protection: universal basic wage, free money for the lazy, work therapies. Call it what you will, but we are entering a period in which, if we want to maintain social peace, we will have to support a lot of people, at least until we adapt to the new system.
We will find ourselves in a situation very similar to that of Roman citizenship. On the one hand, subsidies will be good to help people who would prefer to work but can’t and give them room to train for new jobs. But on the other hand, there will inevitably emerge a social stratum willing to live on the breadline, which will have great political strength and will be willing to listen to anyone who will guarantee its idle subsistence.
The crux of the matter will be in how the percentages are distributed. If it is 90/10 there will be no major problem and we will be able to move towards a new, richer society, with more free time and satisfied people.
If it is 60/40 we will have millions of idle people who will bring frustration, discontent and bad politicians. With bad politicians will come populism, misery and eventually wars. At the moment we seem to be closer to the latter than the former.
History gives us two important warnings:
- AI generates political instability in systems with distributed power, i.e. democracy in Europe for example is very much under threat. On the other hand, for China, with a strong central power, the new annona will increase the power of the Chinese Comunist Party.
- If we want to avoid a new class maintained by the state and dedicated exclusively to consuming entertainment, giving money is not enough. We will need a work and training ecosystem that motivates people to improve, that allows them to set and achieve goals, that provides incentives for personal growth and for improving the environment.
What to do with this advice is in our hands!
- Rickman, Geoffrey E. The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. ↩︎
