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'Technology Will Replace the Need For Big Government' (vice.com)
New submitter axlash writes: There's a lot of dissatisfaction with governments today, as can be seen by the rise of left-wing parties in Europe, to the rise of non-mainstream political candidates in America. Well, here's a thought -- with all the talk of technology replacing jobs, why not have it replace governments, too? The speculates about how "in the near future, the government might dramatically shrink -- not because of demands by fiscally astute Americans, but because of radical technology." It goes on: "Even the US President could one day be replaced, which -- strangely enough -- might bring sanity to our election process." The main thrust of the article is essentially about how government jobs will be replaced with technology, although it doesn't say much about whether there'll be technology administering this technology.
There seems to be a fundamental misconception behind this story: namely that 'big' refers to number of employees; rather than size of role.
It's obvious to the point of trivial that certain technological advances will reduce the number of people required to do a given job; but that doesn't change whether or not the job is considered to be within the state's mandate or whether it is a private sector matter.
That's what size-of-government fights are really about(sure, there's some skirmishing about shrinking or expanding specific workforces to either save money or address a perceived deficiency in service): "What should the government do? What should it not do? What is acceptable to contract out? What is best handled internally?"
Given that technology has tended to result in labor savings, I'd certainly expect a lower headcount in government in the future; but that's irrelevant to whether it is 'big' or not. Running a welfare state, say, would probably be more efficient if you could just have a single AI do it; but it'd be just as much a 'big government' proposal, just one with fewer people pushing paper around.
The whole problem is the notion that people need an "oversight role", which in fact they do not.
What technology enables is the ability for local regions to function in a decentralized manner without need for "oversight" or "central planning".
It's not about REPLACING human oversight, but dismantling it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley