Fernando Alcoforado *
Researchers at Oxford University published in 2013 a detailed study of the impact of computing on employment in the United States, considering recent advances in machine learning and mobile robots. The researchers concluded that 47% of current jobs are at high risk of automation in the coming years and decades and another 19% at medium risk. They consider that only a third of current workers will not be replaced by smart machines in the next one or two decades (FORD, Martin. Rise of the robots. New York: Basic Books, 2015).
We live without a doubt an era defined by the fundamental change between workers and machines and that this change puts in check one of the basic hypotheses about the technology that machines are instruments that increases the productivity of workers. Instead, machines are turning into workers. Faced with the perspective of replacing workers by robots, the solutions that are presented to mitigate the effects of the unemployment generated by the technological advance in the current limits of development of capitalism are related to the adoption of the Creative Economy, the Social and Solidarity Economy and the Transfer Program of Income. These solutions would also provide the conditions to cope with the current underutilization of 27.6 million workers in Brazil.
Creative Economy refers to activities with socioeconomic potential that deal with creativity, knowledge and information. In order to understand it, it is necessary to keep in mind that companies in this segment combine the creation, production and commercialization of cultural creative assets and innovation such as Fashion, Art, Digital Media, Advertising, Journalism, Photography and Architecture. In common, area businesses rely on talent and creativity to effectively exist. They are distributed in 13 different areas: 1) architecture; 2) advertising; 3) design; 4) arts and antiquities; 5) crafts; 6) fashion; 7) cinema and video; 8) television; 9) publishing and publications; 10) performing arts; 11) radio; 12) leisure software; and, 13) music. It is important to say that by focusing on creativity, imagination and innovation as its main characteristic, the creative economy is not restricted to products, services or technologies. It also encompasses processes, business models, management models, etc. [DESCOLA. A economia criativa no mundo moderno (The creative economy in the modern world). Available on the website <https://descola.org/drops/a-economia-criativa-no-mundo-moderno/>, 2016].
The Social and Solidarity Economy is a new model of economic, social, political and environmental development that has a different way of generating work and income, in several sectors, be it community banks, credit cooperatives, family agriculture cooperatives, fair trade, exchange clubs, etc. The Social and Solidarity Economy is a new way of organizing work and economic activities in general, emerging as an important alternative for the inclusion of workers in the labor market, giving a new opportunity to them, through self-management. On the basis of the Social and Solidarity Economy, there is the possibility of recovering companies from the bankruptcy mass, and give continuity to them, with a new mode of production, in which profit maximization ceases to be the main objective, giving rise to the maximization of quantity and quality of work. The social and solidarity economy accounts for 10% of GDP and accounts for 12.7% of employment in France (LACROIX, Géraldine and SLITINE, Romain, L’économie sociale et solidaire, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2016). In Brazil, the social and solidarity economy represents 1% of GDP [REDE BRASIL ATUAL. Com autogestão, economia solidária já representa 1% do PIB no Brasil (With self-management, solidary economy already represents 1% of GDP in Brazil). Available on the website <http://www.redebrasilatual.com.br/economia/2015/08/economia-solidaria-ja-representa-1-do-pib-no-brasil-3696.html>, 2015].
If we accept the idea that it is unrealistic to stop automation and that more investment in education and training is unlikely to solve the problem of unemployment, Martin Ford believes that the most effective solution is to adopt an income guarantee policy for workers. (FORD, Martin. Rise of the robots. New York: Basic Books, 2015). This idea is not new. Friedrich August von Hayek, Austrian economist and philosopher, later naturalized British, considered one of the greatest representatives of the Austrian School of economic thought, was the proponent of this idea when published between 1973 and 1979 his work Law, Legislation and Liberty (Routledge, 1988).
In short, the income guarantee policy for workers concerns the Universal Basic Income which is a system similar to that of social assistance through which all citizens of a country, whether they are employed or not, would receive from government, a fixed monthly amount. The difference is that the Universal Basic Income would be a single substitute for all social assistance allowances and that salary would be provided unconditionally, without any obligation on the part of the citizen. The goal is to enable all people to have a better quality of life and thus better opportunities. It is a way of combating income inequality and ensuring that every citizen has enough money to live above the poverty line. The neoliberal income transfer program of the Lula and Dilma Rousseff governments in Brazil, the Bolsa Família, is an example of the application of Hayek’s income guarantee policy.
Sadly, the future Bolsonaro government presents no solution to meet the current unemployment of 27.6 million underutilized workers in Brazil with the implementation of a program of public works of economic infrastructure (energy, transport and communications) and social infrastructure (education, health, housing and basic sanitation) with the participation of the government and the private sector, as well as presenting no initiative towards the adoption of the Creative Economy, the Social and Solidarity Economy and the Income Transfer Program to cope with unemployment resulting from technological advances. There is also no initiative to make Brazil’s education system capable of equipping Brazilian workers with the skills required by the world of work, which will be characterized by the presence of intelligent machines.
There is every reason to believe that robots should be widely used in productive activity in general, which makes it imperative to prepare human beings to deal with these intelligent machines in the labor market. The great challenge of education in Brazil is represented not only by overcoming the deficiency of the current system but, above all, to face the rapid changes that are occurring in the world of work thanks to the technological advance, mainly due to the impact of artificial intelligence that is similar to human intelligence exhibited by mechanisms or software. Experts believe that the intelligence of machines will match that of humans by 2050, thanks to a new era in their ability to learn. This means that we are creating machines that can teach themselves and also communicate by simulating human speech.
Considering that one of the objectives of a country’s education system is to plan the preparation and recycling of people for the labor market, it is incumbent upon the planners of Brazil’s education systems to identify the role of human beings in the world of work in a future with intelligent machines to carry out a wide-ranging revolution in teaching at all levels, including the qualification of teachers and the structuring of teaching units to prepare their students for a world of work where people will have to deal with intelligent machines. Educational units at all levels of education must be deeply restructured to achieve these goals.
To make a revolution in Brazil’s education system, it is necessary to prepare the teacher to fulfill a new role. The role of the teacher is decisive so that through education a new type of man qualified for the world of work is created and conscious and well prepared to transform the world in which we live for his benefit. The role of the teacher should be that of a manager of processes rich in meaningful learning and not that of simply sending information in the classroom. The teacher should act as mediator of the students’ learning process using simple technologies, such as those on the cell phone, a camera to illustrate, a free program to gather the images and to count on them interesting stories and the students being authors, protagonists of their process of learning.
In his program of government, Jair Bolsonaro presents no strategy that would lead to a revolution in Brazil’s education system. His emphasis is on eliminating academic freedom by trying to prevent the teacher from discussing political or ideological conceptions in the classroom. Another Bolsonaro emphasis is that it is possible to do more with the current resources, and there is no need to increase the investment in education that is false since the investment per student in Brazil is the second lowest in the world. We should be inspired by the educational policies practiced in Japan, Finland, South Korea and Switzerland, which are the most advanced countries in education in the world, in order to restructure Brazil’s education system from pre-school to higher education.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 78, holder of the CONFEA / CREA System Medal of Merit, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books addressing issues such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and Climate Change, The Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and The Great Scientific, Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.
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