Artificial Intelligence: Just A New Type of Automation?

Walter Reuther's 1959 Automation Thought Applies to A. I.

As we move forward in the future, won't we as human beings always be "automating," "improving," and "redesigning" our processes? If we stopped doing this, we would also probably stop being "human beings." So, as we have in the past, we need to find a way to "handle" the latest automation--artificial intelligence, just like we have other "automation technologies."

Don't fear ... act! And remember that as this interchange makes clear, there will rarely be one winner or loser in any technological advancement.

​Work together.

Walter Reuther of United Auto Workers (UAW) on Automation: We can all lose ... or win!

By the late 1950s automotive companies had been automating for at least a full generation of workers. In 1938, Henry Ford initiated a corporate-wide minimum daily wage of $5.00 for an eight-hour day. Henry Ford used automation to pay his workers in his factories top wages for an 8-hour day and also lowered the price of his cars making them available to the "common man." Unheard of when the promise of $5.00 for an eight-hour day was made, it caused a major uprising within his business peers: [Full story is in this article].

Automation in a post office in 1963.

It was observed a decade later that management said that with union demands for even higher wages, businesses must turn ever further to "labor-saving" devices in order to survive. In other words it was "automate or die."

Walter Reuther, United Auto Worker's Chief, related this story as an answer to this "problem."

"He told of visiting a newly automated Ford plant and having a Ford Company official ask him: 'How are you going to collect union dues from those robot machines?' Being of quick wit, Walter Reuther retorted: 'And how “are you going to get the robots to buy Fords?' "

Extracted from numerous newspaper articles from 1959

A business needs to be run for the benefit of all stakeholders: customers, shareholders, employees and society! As we talk about utilizing artificial intelligence we have to ensure employees can expect to be paid more, customers can expect better quality products at a lower price, shareholders should get an adequate return to incent them to keep investing in the business, and stable, secure and democratic societies is the result.

Peter E. Greulich, Author and Publisher