2024-03-13 07:00:04
It took two quarters in a row of productivity booms in the United States for analysts to see the signal of a new cycle. Thirty years after those of the Internet wave, the promises of artificial intelligence (AI) would finally come true. If this resurgence is confirmed in the months to come, the concerns raised by AI will be swept away by a discourse on the imperative to embrace these technologies.
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On the French political level, technophile and pro-business macronism would find itself legitimized. However, on this subject too, he will find himself in competition with the far right. Certainly, the National Rally first raised the scarecrow of another “great replacement”, that of the French worker by AI. But in less than a year, the change in tone has been radical. Thus, Jordan Bardella became a technophile “pragmatic”, denouncing the “dark prophecies” and the risk of «neoluddisme» of those who would refuse the deployment of AI.
How can we combine conservatism, nationalism, even xenophobia, and technophilia? Japan offers an illustration dissected by the social sciences (Robo sapiens japanicus. Robots, Gender, Family, and the Japanese NationJennifer Robertson, University of California Press, 2017 ; Robots Won’t Save Japan, James Wright, Cornell University Press, 2023).
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Conservative power massively supports innovation and the diffusion of both physical and algorithmic robots, and especially the fusion of the two, robots doped with AI. Three arguments justify this strategy. The first is sovereignty and power: the nation must develop its own capabilities, through strong support from the State; national companies will then be able to establish themselves abroad. The second argument concerns women: AI and robots will offer new relief from domestic tasks, and thus give them back the desire to procreate!
Robots and labor
While waiting for this demographic rearmament, the third, central argument is that AI and robots fill the growing labor shortage. The machine makes it possible to avoid the use of immigrant labor which would threaten national identity. Conversely, technologies designed in Japan reinforce the identity of an “innovative nation”. Better still, the AI will converse in Japanese and be imbued with Japanese culture. Among some defenders of natively Japanese robots, we find opponents of immigration.
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Does this strategy work? The number of births in Japan is at its lowest since World War II. Labor shortages are increasing. Anthropologist James Wright analyzed the practical impact of intelligent robots in nursing homes, a priority segment of public policy. Staffing needs are already massive and will become exponential. Work overload generates musculoskeletal disorders which further erode the labor supply. Robots have therefore been deployed in numerous structures. Robots for manipulating the elderly have been rejected by families as too dehumanizing.
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