Religious Revival in an Automated Future

America is bound to have a religious renewal in the coming decades. This may be a surprising prediction, as there has been a distinct decline in religiosity amongst Americans at a time when religion is becoming increasingly tied into partisan politics. Moreover, religion is least popular with millennials, adding to the suspicion surround religion rising. Yet, these factors pale in comparison to the larger factors that will change society and result in a rise in religion—namely dramatic changes in the social structure due to job loss.

When people envision the biggest challenges we will face in the in the future, they often foresee increasing automation and a world dominated by artificial intelligence (AI). Many economists have predicted that this increased reliance on robots will put millions out of work and drastically change the economy as we know it. The last time automation significantly changed our economy we invested in education, resulting in a shift from agriculture and factory jobs to service sector employment. Economists fear that the current wave of automation, however, will not provide a new field for jobs to shift to. Instead, they predict a world where AI is able to do almost all the tasks humans currently do, and robot intelligence will even surpass our own. Katja Grace and researchers at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford conducted a study of leading AI experts to get a sense of how quickly AI will take over human tasks. The average expert predicted AI would have the capacity to be a retail salesperson within the next 15 years and write a New York Times best seller or perform surgery within 35 years. Even starker, they predict a high enough level of machine intelligence to replace almost all human tasks within 45 years. While these are only predictions, in the past, predictions have underestimated AI. There are many implications of this increased reliance on robots, but the one that concerns most people is the fear of losing jobs forever.

[pullquote]Economists fear that the current wave of automation, however, will not provide a new field for jobs to shift to.[/pullquote]

There are a variety of ways to respond to this fear of job loss. One of the most popular ideas is a Universal Basic Income, or UBI. This policy is based on the idea that because automation will replace so many jobs, and at the same time increase productivity and efficiency of society, the government ought to give every citizen enough money to survive. This money would be paid directly to members of society so they can care for themselves and their families, as opposed to enhancing current social safety net programs. There are many other ideas aside from UBI, and most of them rely on similar concepts of redistributing the increased productivity from automation back to people so they have adequate resources on which to live. While these ideas are a start to thinking about how to deal with a changing society, I believe they miss a key issue that a society facing increasing job loss due to automation will have: a struggle to find meaning.

Jobs have historically been a major source of meaning for people. They take up most of the day, and allow workers to bring back resources to their families. Jobs also provide people with a community, as people tend to make friends and form relationships through their workplace. As Voltaire once said, “work saves a man from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.” Jobs form the structure of people’s lives. While those without formal jobs have also been able to find meaning (such as the traditional house caretaker role, of which women were historically pushed into), jobs have historically provided a major source of meaning for our society.

MIT research scientist Andrew McAfee, an expert on the impact of technology on the economy, recently spoke to The New Yorker regarding his concerns about a rapidly changing economy. In his research, he found that we should not be worried about the actual number of jobs lost, as our economy absorbs one and a half million people that get laid off each month, but rather the fact that those who are losing their jobs—the uneducated, middle to lower class folks—will find it much harder to adjust to a changing economy. In response to UBI advocates, McAfee talks about the communities he’s visited that have been affected by automation. Those communities do not suffer from starvation or an inability to provide resources to their community. Rather, they suffer from losing the other things that a job provides: dignity, community, and a sense of meaning and purpose in life. His observations seem to be related to the growing phenomena of so-called “deaths from despair,” or deaths by suicide, drugs, and alcohol that have increased dramatically according to Princeton researchers Anne Case and Angus Deaton. They hypothesize that this rise in deaths among non-college educated white Americans over the last couple decades is caused by the loss of jobs in many of these communities. Their residents had been reliant on factory or industrial labor, creating distress and social dysfunction that has built up over time. Comparing these numbers to college-educated white Americans who haven’t seen this increase in death rate, they conclude that these deaths are caused not from poverty and lack of resources, but rather from the sulking despair and sadness that accompanies job loss. These people do not have the skills to shift jobs and do not want to move to find other jobs. Instead, they are left confused and despondent about what to do with their lives, resulting in “deaths from despair.”

Furthermore, it is not just these older factory town workers that one imagines when thinking about rising job loss who seek meaning and structure from their jobs. In fact, polling from the Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor shows Millennials care even more about having a fulfilling job than their predecessors did. Millennials not only want jobs, but jobs that they find enjoyable and that allow them to make a difference in the world. They often look for their jobs to be their primary source of meaning.

If the predictions economists make about the economy are true, and there is widespread job loss, our country will have to deal with a potential rise in despair and the cultural crisis of dealing with a population that is no longer able to rely on jobs to provide meaning, structure, and dignity in their lives. Instead, people will be forced to look elsewhere to find these essential qualities that jobs once provided for them.

I believe that these economic conditions make it ripe for a renewal of religion in America. The current trend of automation, and the potential widespread job loss that will accompany it, will result in a cultural shift that will make religion more popular than ever. Religion provides many of the qualities that places devastated by a loss of jobs lack. It gives people meaning and purpose in life, creates tight-knit communities, and provides structure, discipline, and dignity. While there is currently a rise in “nones,” or people without religious affiliation, there is also an increase among these unaffiliated people who claim to be spiritual, but not religious.

[pullquote]Religion provides many of the qualities that places devastated by a loss of jobs lack. It gives people meaning and purpose in life, creates tight knit communities, and provides, and provides structure, discipline, and dignity.[/pullquote]

Spirituality is a way of searching for meaning, and it demonstrates the desire to find some sort of purpose in the world. The unaffiliated often leave organized religion because they see corruption, or find that the politics of religious organizations go against their values. Today we see some of the most populous religions attempting to fit into the modern times by reforming themselves, and adjusting religious doctrines to fit what is becoming more popular and acceptable in society. One example of this is the Catholic Church under Pope Francis, which has shifted its rhetoric about still loving people who are gay, and the importance of caring for the poor and the environment. Additionally, there has been a resurgence of the religious left. After a disproportionate amount of spotlight on the conservative Evangelical Christian right, people now see that religions can fit within a variety of different political viewpoints. As leaders of the political right have brought religious conservatives into the political fold in the last quarter century, so too have leaders of the religious left tried to bring some of the political left back into organized religion. Organized religion is slowly but surely responding to the gradual “emptying of the pews”, which they have experienced. Moreover, globally, more people are creating new religions and new denominations to better fit with current ideas of what religion should look like.

[pullquote]Much like we care for our bodies holistically through physical and mental health, we have to care for citizens holistically. It is not merely enough to make sure people have enough money to get by, but we also must make sure they have meaning, community, and dignity.[/pullquote]

In a future that holds the potential widespread job-loss, society is ripe for significant change. We could radically change our economic policy, our culture, or our structure of life. In order to prevent the “deaths of despair” that have already affected so many people, society will have to respond to the other problems created by job loss, aside from resource distribution. Much like we care for our bodies holistically through physical and mental health, we have to care for citizens holistically. It is not merely enough to make sure people have enough money to get by, but we also must make sure they have meaning, community, and dignity. This is clearly a difficult problem, and one that will not be solved purely though public policy. I believe that organized religion provides people exactly those qualities that massive joblessness takes away—meaning, community, and structure, and thus I foresee an increase in organized religion in the coming future.

Reuben Siegman ‘18 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at reuben.siegman@wustl.edu.