Much is made in the media about the prevalence of sexism and sex-based inequality in the world. In the long run, won’t technology close whatever gaps there are and solve these problems? Consider:
- Job automation will eliminate the gender pay gap. Today, men make more money than women in almost every type of occupation. However, if machines end up taking over 100% of all gainful jobs (“gainful” = someone else is willing to pay for the product of your labor; so volunteer jobs are excluded), then all humans will be earning $0 and there will be no gender pay gap.
- Job automation will also eliminate the gender labor force participation rate gap and gender unemployment rate gap. Today, men are overall more likely to work outside the home, but they’re also more likely to be unemployed. Again, since no humans will have gainful jobs in the future, this disparity will vanish.
- Robot labor will eliminate the gender household chore gap. Tasks like washing laundry and cooking food generally fall harder on women in households, but if each house has a robot servant, none of the humans have to do anything, and this gap also disappears. Robot servants could also act as babysitters and free up time for their parents (though I’d imagine they’d have little real need for this since they wouldn’t have real jobs anymore), which would benefit women more since they also shoulder a heavier share of looking after their children than men do.
- If there is any educational gap* in the future, it will become much less significant because level of education will no longer parlay to a job or salary. High school graduates will earn the same as particle physics Ph.D’s: Nothing. And without boring but high-paying STEM jobs to look forward to, more men might pursue degrees in the Humanities, which today are dominated by females. (*Arguably, the educational gap has already closed in the U.S. and women are, by some metrics, the more educated sex.)
- The gender wealth gap would also fade away over time thanks to estates being divided up among multiple heirs who couldn’t expand their fortunes since the whole economy would be controlled by machines. For example, let’s say Gramps builds up a net worth of $1 million and then dies in the year 2100, which is the same year the human unemployment rate finally hits 100% and machines have taken over all gainful jobs. Gramps’ fortune is divided equally among his wife (Granny) and three adult children (Alan, Belinda, and Chuck). None of them have jobs, so the money is a (temporary) Godsend. Granny uses her $250k for medical and nursing home expenses, and all her doctors and aides are machines, so the money effectively flows out of human control. Granny spends a little each year until she dies with close to $0 left. Alan wastes his $250k on frivolous stuff like fancy restaurant meals and gambling within three years, and again, all the workers at the establishments he goes to are machines. Belinda uses her money to buy a more expensive house, which effectively “locks in” her $250k as home equity and a permanent net worth increase, but she finds it impossible to get any richer than that since neither she nor her husband can get paying jobs. Machines do everything important, and all they can do is collect welfare, spend time with their kids, pursue hobbies, and take free online courses (taught either by machines or human volunteers). Belinda and her husband eventually spend most of their money on medical bills, and when they die, the amount of money they pass to their kids is much less than what they got from Gramps. Chuck uses his $250k to finally indulge his lifelong dream to start a bar/restaurant. He has a perfect business plan, a menu crafted by professional chefs, a prime location, very tasteful decor, and top-of-the-line robot chefs and waiters. Food critics give “Chuck’s Bar” rave reviews, as do average patrons on platforms like Yelp. However, Chuck has a problem: One block away, there’s an identical bar/restaurant, but instead of being owned by a human, it’s owned by an intelligent robot named “RoboChuck.” Because RoboChuck is a machine, he isn’t materialistic, doesn’t need to sleep or take breaks, is cool with using a small closet in his restaurant for a residence instead of buying a house, and is fine working 24/7 for a $10,000 yearly salary. As a result, “RoboChuck’s” has lower overhead costs and can sell the exact same food and drinks as “Chuck’s” at lower prices. No matter how hard Chuck works, he can’t make up for his inherent inferiority to RoboChuck, nor can he find a way to ameliorate the extra costs that he personally inflicts on his business. Because of the price difference, customers gradually drift away to RoboChuck’s. In spite of his talent, dedication, and seemingly perfect business plan, Chuck’s bar/restaurant goes bankrupt after a few years, and he loses all $250k of his inheritance with it. His landlord and all of his creditors are machines. After that, Chuck bitterly grasps the reality of the new economy and takes up watercolor painting in his government-provided apartment. In an economy where machines do all the real work, human net worth invariably goes to $0, unless backstopped by some government-mandated wealth redistribution (i.e. – machine earnings are taxed and given to humans as welfare payments). Net worth inequalities between human males and females would disappear.