Tech
If AI takes most of our jobs, money as we know it will be over. What then?
It’s the defining technology of an era. But just how artificial intelligence (AI) will end up shaping our future remains a controversial question.
For techno-optimists, who see the technology improving our lives, it heralds a future of material abundance.
That outcome is far from guaranteed. But even if AI’s technical promise is realized—and with it, once intractable problems are solved—how will that abundance be used?
We can already see this tension on a smaller scale in Australia’s food economy. According to the Australian government, we collectively waste around 7.6 million tons of food a year. That’s about 312 kilograms per person.
At the same time, as many as one in eight Australians are food-insecure, mostly because they do not have enough money to pay for the food they need.
What does that say about our ability to fairly distribute the promised abundance from the AI revolution?
AI could break our economic model
As economist Lionel Robbins articulated when he was establishing the foundations of modern market economics, economics is the study of a relationship between ends (what we want) and scarce means (what we have) which have alternative uses.
Markets are understood to work by rationing scarce resources toward endless wants. Scarcity affects prices—what people are willing to pay for goods and services. And the need to pay for life’s necessities requires (most of) us to work to earn money and produce more goods and services.
The promise of AI bringing abundance and solving complex medical, engineering and social problems sits uncomfortably against this market logic.
It is also directly connected to concerns that technology will make millions of workers redundant. And without paid work, how do people earn money or markets function?
Meeting our wants and needs
It is not only technology, though, that causes unemployment. A relatively unique feature of market economies is their ability to produce mass want, through unemployment or low wages, amid apparent plenty.
As economist John Maynard Keynes revealed, recessions and depressions can be the result of the market system itself, leaving many in poverty even as raw materials, factories and workers lay idle.
In Australia, our most recent experience of the economic downturn wasn’t caused by a market failure. It stemmed from the public health crisis of the pandemic. Yet it still revealed a potential solution to the economic challenge of technology-fueled abundance.
Changes to government benefits—to increase payments, remove activity tests and ease means-testing—radically reduced poverty and food insecurity, even as the productive capacity of the economy declined.
Similar policies were enacted globally, with cash payments introduced in more than 200 countries. This experience of the pandemic reinforced growing calls to combine technological advances with a “universal basic income.”
This is a research focus of the Australian Basic Income Lab, a collaboration between Macquarie University, the University of Sydney and the Australian National University.
If everyone had a guaranteed income high enough to cover necessities, then market economies might be able to manage the transition, and the promises of technology might be broadly shared.
Welfare, or rightful share?
When we talk about universal basic income, we have to be clear about what we mean. Some versions of the idea would still leave huge wealth inequalities.
My Australian Basic Income Lab colleague, Elise Klein, along with Stanford Professor James Ferguson, have called instead for a universal basic income designed not as welfare, but as a “rightful share.”
They argue the wealth created through technological advances and social cooperation is the collective work of humanity and should be enjoyed equally by all, as a basic human right. Just as we think of a country’s natural resources as the collective property of its people.
These debates over universal basic income are much older than the current questions raised by AI. A similar upsurge of interest in the concept occurred in early 20th-century Britain, when industrialization and automation boosted growth without abolishing poverty, instead threatening jobs.
Even earlier, Luddites sought to smash new machines used to drive down wages. Market competition might produce incentives to innovate, but it also spreads the risks and rewards of technological change very unevenly.
Universal basic services
Rather than resisting AI, another solution is to change the social and economic system that distributes its gains. UK author Aaron Bastani offers a radical vision of “fully automated luxury communism.”
He welcomes technological advances, believing this should allow more leisure alongside rising living standards. It is a radical version of the more modest ambitions outlined by the Labor government’s new favorite book—Abundance.
Bastani’s preferred solution is not a universal basic income. Rather, he favors universal basic services.
Instead of giving people money to buy what they need, why not provide necessities directly—as free health, care, transport, education, energy and so on?
Of course, this would mean changing how AI and other technologies are applied—effectively socializing their use to ensure they meet collective needs.
No guarantee of utopia
Proposals for universal basic income or services highlight that, even on optimistic readings, by itself AI is unlikely to bring about utopia.
Instead, as Peter Frase outlines, the combination of technological advance and ecological collapse can create very different futures, not only in how much we collectively can produce, but in how we politically determine who gets what and on what terms.
The enormous power of tech companies run by billionaires may suggest something closer to what former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis calls “technofeudalism,” where control of technology and online platforms replaces markets and democracy with a new authoritarianism.
Waiting for a technological “nirvana” misses the real possibilities of today. We already have enough food for everyone. We already know how to end poverty. We don’t need AI to tell us.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Tech
Adidas Promo Codes: Up to 40% Off in January 2026
No matter how my style may change, I always consider Adidas the ultimate shoes for effortlessly cool people. With celebrity endorsements from pro athletes like David Beckham to music icons like Pharrell and Bad Bunny, Adidas has cemented itself firmly in the current zeitgeist. Although most known for classic sneaker styles like Sambas (beloved by skaters and boys I had crushes on in high school), Adidas also has always-stylish apparel, slides, running shoes, and more. WIRED has Adidas promo codes so you too can be cool—but on a budget.
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Become a member of the cool kids club with Adidas membership program, adiClub. adiClub gives you free shipping, discount vouchers, and members-only exclusives. When you join, you’ll get instant benefits, points on purchases, and you can get rewards, exclusive experiences, products, vouchers, and more. Right now, when you sign up to be an adiClub member you’ll get a 15% Adidas promo code to save on a fresh pair of sneaks or athleisurewear fit.
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Tech
Meta’s Layoffs Leave Supernatural Fitness Users in Mourning
Tencia Benavidez, a Supernatural user who lives in New Mexico, started her VR workouts during the Covid pandemic. She has been a regular user in the five years since, calling the ability to workout in VR ideal, given that she lives in a rural area where it’s hard to get to a gym or workout outside during a brutal winter. She stuck with Supernatural because of the community and the eagerness of Supernatural’s coaches.
“They seem like really authentic individuals that were not talking down to you,” Benavidez says. “There’s just something really special about those coaches.”
Meta bought Supernatural in 2022, folding it into its then-heavily invested in metaverse efforts. The purchase was not a smooth process, as it triggered a lengthy legal battle in which the US Federal Trade Commission tried to block Meta from purchasing the service due to antitrust concerns about Meta “trying to buy its way to the top” of the VR market. Meta ultimately prevailed. At the time, some Supernatural users were cautiously optimistic, hoping that big bag of Zuckerbucks could keep its workout juggernaut afloat.
“Meta fought the government to buy this thing,” Benavidez says. “All that just for them to shut it down? What was the point?”
I reached out to Meta and Supernatural, and neither responded to my requests for comment.
Waking Up to Ash and Dust
On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Meta has laid off more than 1,000 people across its VR and metaverse efforts. The move comes after years of the company hemorrhaging billions of dollars on its metaverse products. In addition to laying off most of the staff at Supernatural, Meta has shut down three internal VR studios that made games like Resident Evil 4 and Deadpool VR.
“If it was a bottom line thing, I think they could have charged more money,” Goff Johnson says about Supernatural. “I think people would have paid for it. This just seems unnecessarily heartless.”
There is a split in the community about who will stay and continue to pay the subscription fee, and who will leave. Supernatural still has more than 3,000 lessons available in the service, so while new content won’t be added, some feel there is plenty of content left in the library. Other users worry about how Supernatural will continue to license music from big-name bands.
“Supernatural is amazing, but I am canceling it because of this,” Chip told me. “The library is large, so there’s enough to keep you busy, but not for the same price.”
There are other VR workout experiences like FitXR or even the VR staple Beat Saber, which Supernatural cribs a lot of design concepts from. Still, they don’t hit the same bar for many of the Supernatural faithful.
“I’m going to stick it out until they turn the lights out on us,” says Stefanie Wong, a Bay Area accountant who has used Supernatural since shortly after the pandemic and has organized and attended meetup events. “It’s not the app. It’s the community and it’s the coaches that we really, really care about.”
Welcome to the New Age
I tried out Supernatural’s Together feature on Wednesday, the day after the layoffs. It’s where I met Chip and Alisa. When we could stop to catch our breath, we talked about the changes coming to the service. They had played through previous sessions hosted by Jane Fonda or playlists with a mix of music that would change regularly. It seems the final collaboration in Supernatural’s multiplayer mode will be what we played now, an artist series featuring entirely Imagine Dragons songs.
In the session, as we punched blocks while being serenaded by this shirtless dude crooning, recorded narrations from Supernatural coach Dwana Olsen chimed in to hype us up.
“Take advantage of these moments,” Olsen said as we punched away. “Use these movements to remind you of how much awesome life you have yet to live.”
Frankly, it was downright invigorating. And bittersweet. We ended another round, sweaty, huffing and puffing. Chip, Alisa, and I high-fived like crazy and readied for another round.
“Beautiful,” Alisa said. “It’s just beautiful, isn’t it?”
Tech
PSNI resorted to pen and paper after issues with ControlWorks command and control software | Computer Weekly
Unexpected problems in the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s (PSNI’s) ControlWorks software led to police having to resort to manual forms to record calls from the public soon after the software’s introduction in 2019, Computer Weekly has learned.
The force has not reported the incidents to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, which oversees the PSNI, and has not mentioned any incidents with ControlWorks in its annual reports.
While there is no legal duty to report failures with ControlWorks to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, the Policing Board has told Computer Weekly it would expect any serious incidents with ControlWorks to be reported to it.
The PSNI uses ControlWorks as part of its command and control system, for managing, logging and categorising calls received by the emergency services from the public and for dispatching police officers to incidents.
Computer Weekly has learned that the PNSI’s ControlWorks system had technical issues after it first went live in May 2019.
These included slow-downs of the system that required computer systems to be restarted or software to be patched.
On some occasions, police were forced to return to using paper forms to record incidents reported by the public after ControlWorks became unavailable. Information on the forms had to be typed back into the system when the service resumed.
ControlWorks aimed to improve response times
The PSNI announced it was using Capita Communications and Control Solutions’ ControlWorks software in 2018, replacing its 20-year-old Capita Atlas Command and Control System, which had reached the end of its life.
From February 2018, ControlWorks was installed across the PSNI’s three regional contact management centres, before going live in May 2019, but is understood to have had a series of issues during its first few months of operation.
Critical incidents, which affect force-wide availability of ControlWorks, are categorised as P1 or P2. Less serious incidents that do not require urgent remediation are categorised as P3 and P4, Computer Weekly has previously reported.
Computer Weekly understands that the PSNI runs a 24-hour help desk to deal with IT issues, and that it has the ability to escalate incidents with ControlWorks to its IT supplier.
Missing persons search
Computer Weekly understands that a “major issue” with ControlWorks may have delayed information being passed to police officers searching for missing teenager Noah Donohoe, who disappeared from his home in Belfast on 21 June 2020.
Donohoe’s disappearance sparked a massive search operation, as police reviewed hours of CCTV, and hundreds of volunteers joined the search for the vulnerable 14-year-old.
Computer Weekly has learned that on the evening of 23 June 2020, police recorded a “major issue” with ControlWorks that could have led to delays in information being passed to investigators.
Computer Weekly further understands that on the evening of 24 June, a member of the public called police to say they had seen an individual attempting to sell Donohoe’s missing laptop.
This potentially critical information was delayed in being brought to the attention of police officers investigating Donohoe’s disappearance because of a problem with ControlWorks, Computer Weekly has been told.
It is unclear exactly how long the information was delayed by and what its impact on the search for the missing teenager was. But it is understood that detectives on the case reported and noted the delay during the investigation.
The issue with ControlWorks was understood to have been reported during the live investigation at a critical time when Donohoe was missing – two days after he had gone missing, and four days before he was found dead in a Belfast storm drain.
Manchester had serious IT issues
Greater Manchester Police experienced problems when it went live with its Integrated Operational Policing System (iOPS), which included ControlWorks, in July 2019. iOps attempted to integrate Capita’s ControlWorks software with Capita’s PoliceWorks record management software used by police officers for managing day-to-day investigations and intelligence records.
An independent review found serious issues with the project. At one point, police were forced to revert to pen and paper for 72 hours while records were migrated to the new system.
“This consumed considerable time and capacity, causing a duplication of work,” the report found. “In addition, some legacy demand, which included ongoing investigations, did not successfully transfer from the old systems, so could no longer be worked on.”
Greater Manchester Police subsequently announced plans to replace PoliceWorks after concluding it could not be adapted or fixed, but it has continued to use ControlWorks.
The PSNI uses a different record management system to Manchester’s troubled PoliceWorks system. The PSNI signed a £9m contract with the Canadian company NicheRMS to deploy its Records Management System, which records information about people, locations, vehicles, incidents and evidence, in 2006.
NicheRMS keeps duplicate records of reports from the public that are recorded on ControlWorks when they are escalated as an “incident”. This means that should data be lost because of problems with ControlWorks, the PSNI would still have access to duplicate records reported by the public on NicheRMS if they have been escalated as an “incident”.
Policing Board seeks clarification from PSNI
The Northern Ireland Policing Board has confirmed that if a major system disruption or significant information or data loss occurred, the board would expect to be informed.
A spokesperson told Computer Weekly that the board’s Resources Committee, which has oversight responsibility for matters including the PSNI’s technology systems, has asked the PSNI for clarification about the issues raised by Computer Weekly.
A coroner’s inquest into the circumstances of Noah Donohoe’s death is due to begin on 19 January.
The PSNI said it would “not comment on investigative matters while legal proceedings are ongoing”.
“With regards to questions relating to ControlWorks, police can confirm that, to date, there has been no instance of major disruption which has led to data loss,” a spokesperson said.
Capita declined to comment.
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