Economist Mark Lautman is already thinking about 2050, and thinks experts in Juneau should be too.
Lautman spoke to a packed house at Thursday’s Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon about a future that he finds simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying.
“The kind of things that are gonna happen, that are gonna come into reality in the next 33 years,” Lautman said, “ends in science fiction land.”
The author of “When the Boomers Bail,” a book about the economic future after the baby boomer generation fades out, Lautman painted a picture of what the next 33 years could look like. He said it’s vital for communities such as Juneau to have long-term strategic plans that all parts of the community benefit from and agree on.
Lautman said that the most important part of his hour-long talk, however, was about a much more unknown factor — artificial intelligence. What Lautman called “narrow AI” is already very present in our lives, as our cellphones are already thinking for themselves to an extent. Those devices still depend on us, though, Lautman pointed out.
Soon, these devices will transition into the “general AI,” where they can communicate with each other to fix bugs and update their systems without us even knowing. The next step, Lautman said, is “super AI,” where our machines will begin to make emotional decisions similar to the ones humans make.
It won’t happen tomorrow, Lautman said, but machines taking the place of people in the workforce isn’t far off.
“If you live to be 100 with me and make it to 2050, you’re gonna see this,” Lautman said. “This is gonna happen on our watch.”
Cities such as Juneau, Lautman said, need to start planning for that future as soon as possible. Lautman went to high school with Juneau businessman Bruce Denton and the two have talked at length about Juneau’s economy. Lautman applauded the way Juneau has responded well to changing sources of income over the years, including making the most of the cruise industry’s interest in Juneau.
As he spoke to the audience that included Mayor Ken Koelsch, Rep. Justin Parish, four City and Borough of Juneau Assembly members and numerous business owners, Lautman made it clear that merely being adaptable won’t be enough.
“You’ve been good at reacting,” Lautman said. “Better than most of your competitors at recognizing a good opportunity and seizing it. That’s not gonna be good enough anymore. If all you do is react, if all you do is anticipate that these things will lead to more opportunities and that’s as good as you are, you are probably gonna crash and burn in the next 30 years.”
Lautman advised having a group of forward-thinkers in Juneau get together solely for the purpose of doing that — thinking forward. He said that the further ahead that local experts can plan, the better off the city will be.
The next 33 years will be nothing like the past 33 years, Lautman said, so economic leaders will have to spend a great deal of their time using their imagination and reading up on artificial intelligence and other futuristic topics.
“Anybody that isn’t spending a third of their time thinking about the future and the crazy exponential part of the future,” Lautman said, “will not have a true sense of reality about the future we’re playing with.”
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.
