Welcome to brain economics: technology will change the way we look at work, capital and skills

If Marx were alive today and playing with GPT4, he would have been the first to notice that the nature of work has changed drastically since the mid-19th century – from the body to the ability to the brain. Physical work required no education, skill-based work required higher education, training and expertise, and now brain-based work is about rapid innovation and creation driven by technology. Welcome to brain economics.

No industry will be immune to technology in the global brain economy. Retail, agriculture, automotive, finance, energy, manufacturing, healthcare, education, sports and entertainment are being powered and reshaped by technology and intelligence. The technology will not be limited to software, artificial intelligence and data analysis – it will quickly spread across brain science, quantum computing, genetic engineering, 3D printing, nanotechnology and combinations thereof.

We need to internalize the uncomfortable reality that the search for perfection in technology and the problems it brings is an illusion. Cars have greatly changed our lives for the better, but have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths due to accidents and polluted the environment with emissions.

The answer, of course, is not to ban cars, but to make them safer and cleaner. Technology will evolve and the new generation of technology will solve the problems of previous generations. First generation vaccines have saved billions of lives from Covid.

To enable meaningful dialogue about the trade-offs in brain economics, we must first abandon outdated stereotypes of evil corporations, sinful profits, and inhumane technology. The accompanying myth of man versus machine, created when work meant the human body, must be put to rest. Technology doesn’t destroy jobs – it creates jobs, frees people and drives social progress. Like it or not, technological advances in brain economics will always be a few steps ahead of politicians, bureaucrats, policies and laws. We will have to learn to deal with it.

Of course, there will be concerns, like greedy corporations with a drive to dominate the market and exploit loopholes. There will be ethical dilemmas in choosing technologies. Regulation and oversight are essential, but these must be pragmatic, not dogmatic.
To do this, we need to broaden the definitions of progressives, intellectuals and civil society. These definitions cannot be confined to a closed group of humanities scholars, activists and NGOs.

Technology illiteracy impedes understanding, spreads untruths, and impedes progress. A clear understanding of technology is just as important an issue as privacy, inclusivity, fairness and ethics. Scientists, technologists, businessmen, entrepreneurs and corporations must also be present at the discussion table. Collaboration is key. Opposing positions will lead to extreme polarization and deadlock, leading to economic stagnation and regression.

The country’s educational architecture must be revised immediately. Pupils and teachers in primary and secondary education need to be equipped with technology. Mistakes in experimentation and creation in schools should be celebrated, not ridiculed. Not failing means not trying new things. Multidisciplinary research universities should be created on a wartime basis. Courses in various aspects of technology must be made compulsory for all liberal arts programs, just as liberal arts courses should be compulsory in all science and engineering schools.

The concerns of workers in the corporate economy revolved around low wages, seniority and exploitation. The concerns of employees in the skill economy are competence relevance, flexibility and work-life balance. In the brain economy, they question the company’s impact on the environment, gender parity, wealth sharing and other social issues. The business of the business will therefore no longer be limited to the business.

There could be many errors. Every successful innovation is built on a graveyard of failures. We have to get used to including it in resource allocation and not letting mistakes stop us from moving forward. Many companies will be a combination of brain, skill and body. Amazon, for example, has a brain that creates new listings, skills that power its massive data centers, and facilities that deliver packages to your home. The focus will be on the complete elimination of the body and the gradual replacement of skills with technology. The holy grail will be a pure brain corporation. The accompanying job losses must be compensated by the creation of new types of jobs that we can hardly imagine today, but which we must anticipate and adapt to.

Many brains will operate outside of the realm of corporations. The scale and scope of open source innovation will continue to grow, giving rise to a “social brain”. India’s digital public goods revolution is a case in point. Companies will also realize that not the best minds are working on their payroll.

The relationship between capital and labor will change. Capital exploited physical labor and invested in skills. It will now hunt and cooperate with the brain. The power relations between capital and labor are becoming more symmetrical. But markets will create inequality by assigning exponentially different values ​​to bodies, skills, and brains.

In a country the size of India, converting everyone to brain economics overnight is impossible. The largest component of the body economy in India is agriculture. We need our agriculture to be technology enabled and not body driven. Inequality will remain, but it is better to be unequally wealthy than equally poor.

But the bigger problem of inequality is inequality between nations. In brain economics, the alternative to technology and innovation is utter meaninglessness. To be a globally relevant player, India needs to embrace the concept of this new world of brain economy, adapt its mindset and adjust its resources accordingly.

The author is CEO of Krayon Pictures

© The Indian Express (P) Ltd

First publication on: 26-04-2023 at 06:30 IST