Why have migrants when you can have robots?

A common policy narrative is that migrants are needed to pay for all the old people.

Another is that without migrants to pick fruit, we would go hungry. Both these imported Western ideas are being used to justify large-scale immigration into Poland. This reasoning is disingenuous and the ideas, put into practice, are disastrous.

By pursuing a pro-AI economic policy, Poland could solve both these problems at once, with none of the harmful effects of mass immigration. As a novel experiment we tried putting these ideas to ChatGPT, but unsurprisingly with its leftist, pro-migration bias, it proved evasive on these topics.

Why are migrants not the answer?

Because what is not made clear or public is that for it to stand any chance of working in Poland it would require an impossible amount of migrants — even the OECD says this:

“So far, the shrinking employment base has not been observed in Poland due to surprisingly strong recent immigration. Between 2013 and 2018, the number of immigrants contributing to pensions increased by half a million, or around 3% of all workers. Still, to ensure stable population structure, the number of immigrants would need to soar ten times more to almost six million by 2028, according to a recent report of the Polish social-security agency.”

Source: https://www.oecd.org/poland/PAG2019-POL.pdf

Six million — a ridiculous increase. Aside from the avalanche of social problems mass immigration causes - one need only look at the multicultural West - it only pushes the problem into the future. The newcomers will eventually need pensions too. Feeding the pensions Ponzi scheme only prolongs the problem.

So what will pay the pensions?

If we increase worker productivity, then we need fewer workers to pay the pensions. The good news is that we are about to enter a new productivity revolution with AI. AI technology has become much more effective over the last five to ten years. We now have the computing power to run AI models at scale, and importantly, with a vast amount of data (thanks to the internet and “big data”) for the AI to learn from.

Once we have built AIs big enough, trained on enough rich data, change will be dramatic. Two fields in particular have undergone huge growth in the last 18 months, each with great potential economic impact - Generative AI (for example ChatGPT) and Advanced Robotics — such as self-driving vehicles.

Both will have a dramatic effect on the labour market and productivity. Let’s examine the possible effects of these two technologies on the Polish labour market.

Generative AI will lead to a productivity boost in Poland’s knowledge industries. Knowledge workers are already using AI, both with and without the knowledge of their employers. To provide an example, tools using this technology — such as Github Copilot — have already been shown to increase the productivity of software developers.

Polish companies embracing and exploiting these technologies will undoubtedly increase productivity. The Polish labour market is experiencing a shortage of skilled knowledge workers, so short-term job losses are unlikely - however increased productivity per worker will help pay the pensions bill.

Generative AI could is more likely to cause job losses where migrants are typically concentrated - for example, in call centres (where foreign language skills are a strength). This area is most vulnerable to automation with chatbots, especially as the interactions are not typically complex.

Poland is strongly engaged in is business process outsourcing. AI has the potential to enhance productivity in this area, albeit with a more pronounced negative effect on junior/entry level roles where migrant workers are more commonly employed.

How will Advanced Robotics affect the Polish labour market?

These effects are still a few years away, but they will be felt in Poland. The period of transition will be longer — possibly a decade — but the change will undoubtedly be more profound.

Multiple processes relying on vision and navigation - for example, delivery and haulage, and public transportation such as trains and trams — are all likely to undergo significant levels of automation. The logistics industry is key to Poland’s infrastructure and economy.

Migrant workers are typically involved in low-skilled work such as factories and warehouses. At the current pace of progress, many of these roles could well be automated in the coming decade.

The barriers to automation will fall as the pace of change forces new regulation over autonomous vehicles (as an example). Bureaucratic obstacles are little more than speed bumps. This is coming.

Some areas of the transportation sector in Poland, such as Uber, Bolt etc, employ a lot of migrant labour. Uber is investing in self-driving taxis. All other taxi services will follow.

Another area ripe for automation is retail. Multi-lingual automated cashiers are already common, with fully automated and unmanned convenience stores appearing around Warsaw (Zabka has a staffless version).

We’ll always need people to pick fruit, won’t we? Actually, no. In Israel and Chile they already have drones doing this.

What obstacles might there be to automation?

Innovation will lead to better and cheaper goods and services — and hence a better standard of living — as it always has. However, such profound transitions are rarely straightforward. Cheap, easily available labour stifles innovation and by extension automation. The Roman Empire had simple steam engines but never fully industrialised — because it had an abundance of imported cheap labour to exploit in the form of slaves. In modern Europe, at least, consent is necessary for exploitation.

If a machine replaces humans at a task, the benefits of innovation and increased productivity remain once the costs of the transition have passed. Import labour, and you get neither. Instead, you bear all the initially hidden costs of imported labour plus all the additional societal problems when said labour becomes surplus to requirements.

With robots, no-one gets exploited. No hidden costs, no societal problems. The fact is that native workers adapt much more readily to such changes. They have prior social and cultural capital — they speak the language, understand the system and have deep networks.

All but the most educated and skilled foreign workers will face considerable difficulties arising from the disappearance of their jobs — doubly so for those in low-skilled positions. On the whole, migrants are far more vulnerable to exploitative practices. One example is those who contract via Uber or similar apps as this expose by the Polish left-liberal newspaper Gazeta Wyborca shows.

Imagine a large Polish employer with a dying business model based on low wages recruits a large number of migrant workers — a business model that then five or so years later implodes.

The now unemployed, low-skilled migrants are left with few options and instead of paying into the welfare system, start drawing from it. Whereas the employer has gained for five years and has run off with his profits — the migrants and not least, the native host society are left to foot the bill and manage the fallout.

Privatisation of gains, socialisation of losses — where have we heard this before? There are historical examples of immigration to support dying industries leading to such human tragedy.

Will AI automation lead to mass unemployment?

Such claims were made in the West during the microcomputer revolution. The West managed it just fine. As already stated, these transitions tend to take at least a decade. Knowing this, we should fear nothing from this change and embrace, not delay it.

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly
Macbeth, Act 1 Scene 7

Native Polish workers can and will adapt — whereas all but the most highly skilled and educated migrants will find it more difficult and will very likely become a burden - socially and financially. Mass immigration, truthfully, is more of a threat than an opportunity. The benefits if any are short-lived, ill thought out and accrue only to big business leaders at the expensive of the native population.

And history tells us that unless they hail from a nearby country, they won’t simply head back home when their work is complete or has dried up. Germany’s ‘gastarbeiters’ are a prime example.

Is this another AI hype cycle?

Since its inception, AI has had hype cycles, but this one is different. One reason is the tools for innovation are available to all — the costs of entry for adopting Generative AI is very low. New applications and products will appear from the most unexpected of places.

In the field of robotics, pressure to automate and reduce labour costs will drive adoption. The technology is ready to start making real changes to how we work. The delays are largely regulatory and lack availability of investment capital — both of which are within the control of the Polish government. Change is inevitable — how Poland manages this change is the question.

Can Poland make a success of this transition?

We are talking about a country that was wiped off the map for 123 years and despite great efforts by three European powers to destroy it, rose like a phoenix. A country that then survived WWII and the destruction wrought on it by both totalitarian regimes, but recovered and prospered. Poland not only endured communism but played a key role in ending it in Europe, and went on to build a dynamic modern economy over the last 30 years. On top of this, right now Poland sits in the top 10 of countries for maths ability in schools (PISA). Polish school kids aspire to be software developers rather than internet influencers.

So to answer our question - yes, it absolutely can. This Polish-American ‘re-patriate’ explains why he returned to his roots:

Poland must embrace this change and not waste resources and squander its future trying to prop up zombie business with cheap imported labour.

Does embracing AI mean we will “eat the bugs” and be happy?

Embracing a technological future need not become a liberal dystopia, no matter what the creepy WEF mad scientist bug man says. There are alternative visions of a technology-enhanced future from the right, for example.

Poles may be better served by building their future well away from the writings of inevitably unhinged Germans or Frenchmen very much disconnected from the political and cultural currents of Polish society.

Poland needs to imagine its own post-industrial technological future, then embrace and shape it. We’re a long way now from the 1990s when Poland was relearning capitalism. The nation already has what it needs within itself. The failed narratives of the West will not serve Poland well.