Once upon a time there was the quaternary sector

You were already familiar with the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Now say hello to the quaternary sector. For while AI may make some experts redundant, it will create others: the players in this “new” sector of the economy.

by Kevin Erkeletyan

IT’S A NEW IDEA, though by no means a recent one. An idea brimming with potential. With the rise of the information economy and the tertiary sector, and the insight of economists and sociologists who had seen where things were going, information, research and knowledge were becoming a fully-fledged economic sector by the late 1960s. Yet fifty years on, this idea knows no bounds. Few authors agree on its definition – and, above all, it is still only an idea. INSEE (the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies) does not recognise it. The OECD does not recognise it. And yet it is definitely at work. In late 2022, the emergence of GAI caused a revolution.

AIs AND HUMAN BEINGS

It hovers between two paradoxical assertions. It’s widely said that GAI will put white-collar workers out of work – goodbye to translators, data analysts and SEO specialists – and, at the same time, enable humans to “focus on the essentials”. A form of “managerial newspeak” that has philosopher Éric Sadin up in arms, as he explained in an interview on France Culture: “It’s as though work ought to be modelled on the idealised nature of computer systems, focusing solely on the finished task, while ignoring all the processes going on within the work itself.” To which the journalist Étienne Klein replied: “But when photography was invented, painters invented abstraction in order to escape this technological competition.” And abstraction gave us Kandinsky.

AI’s abstraction is the quaternary sector. Because it apparently solves problems, and because its scope is still not clearly defined. But what does this sector with the hard-to-pronounce name look like? Is it really a fourth sector, or simply an evolution of the third?

While the tertiary sector is to do with services, the quaternary sector involves “higher-level” services, i.e. those with high added (human) value. The philosopher Bernard Stiegler calls this “the economy of contribution”. It consists of the contribution, production, circulation and processing of knowledge. This means scientific research, education, innovation, artistic creation and everything that – in principle – goes beyond the services that AI can or will soon be able to provide. The quaternary sector is one that should help people regain confidence in their unique qualities. It is the sector of the economy made necessary by AI, and which could in turn become necessary for AI.

As it generates content, an AI increasingly relies on material produced by itself or other AIs, leading to the gradual degeneration of the whole system. The quaternary sector thus provides a form of response to this “model collapse”. To survive its congenital disease, AI must be constantly fed with new, unique content and human intelligence.

GOVERNING AI

More broadly, the economy of contribution plays a role in governing artificial intelligence, by defining quality standards for models, checking the relevance of responses, overseeing ethical standards, training talent, assessing the social impact of technology, and so on. Ask ChatGPT for examples of future or emerging quaternary professions, and it will reply: “designers of ethical frameworks for autonomous AI, architects of collective narratives, socio-technological diplomats, experts in human attention”, and even “civilisational strategists”! In his book “La Richesse des hommes” (1997), the French sociologist Roger Sue sees this “human wealth” as a “new economic era” founded on social bonds and community spirit.

The precise economic weight of this developing concept remains to be seen. And here, too, every author has their own take on it. Proof that the “quaternary sector” is still providing prompts…