Technology has always proved to be a huge let-down for me. They first talked up automation and, now, they are all talking up this Artificial Intelligence thingy. And I am sure that this is going to end up disappointing me the same way all the previous disruptive technology did. Though, yes, nowadays I couldn't care less given that the benefits which I sought from technology are, in a way, mine already.
I mean, look, people used to explain the need for work on the basis that, unless people produced, there would be nothing to consume. Therefore, you HAD to work at something in order to be able to lay claims to those things that you would like to consume...like food, clothing, shelter, yada yada. AND, whenever they talked of technology, they talked of it as something that would ease the burden of work by humanity.
So, is it so out of the way to assume that the day would come when ALL the burden of work would be taken up by machines and humanity could loll around and relax without having to earn the right to consume? After all, the whole rationale for work was to produce that which you needed to consume and now, the machines would do all that production, no?
Reading Science Fiction only exacerbated my misconception. The story that stuck in my mind (just the story, not the title or the author of the story) was one about a chap living in a huge six room villa and allowed to work only for one day in the week. Yup, in a future world where most of the work was being done by machines. The chap was an idiot, though, since he spends most of the story moping about how to rise so high in society that he could live in a single room house and work six days a week. The author was, possibly, satirizing the fact that we yearn for things that society says is upmarket without regard to what we ourselves find comfortable or luxurious. What stuck in my mind, though, was the fact that technology could, one day, create the utopia where I need not work for a living.
Never worked out that way, did it? I mean, every time there is a technology advance which seems like it can take over some of the burden from humanity, people rush in saying 'Oh! It will create new types of jobs' as though it is something desirable. They said that when first computers appeared on the horizon and, alas, they proved right. Now AI makes its way into the world and they are saying that again. Shit!
I don't understand exactly why they say this new-jobs thingy as though it is supposed to reassure people. I mean, really, do people actually LOVE working and are frightened of the concept of leisure? Like that idiot in the story wanting to work six days a week instead of one day and considering it an effing improvement? Has humanity gone bonkers OR was it always bonkers?
I am told, though, that this madness is more systemic than individual. As in, we have a system wherein people have to BUY things and to buy they have money which is given to them only when they work...unless, of course, their forefathers had done what was needed and handed them over an inheritance OR they get that money in a lottery. So, being in a job is sort of necessary in order to consume even if there is an abundance produced without your needing to lift a finger. So, no jobs could equal starvation and thus...
Not that we have, as yet, reached a situation where most of the production is automated. AND, yes, the transition period can get very painful.
But...never mind. We have politicians, who are ahead of the curve, promising freebies at every election. And freebies are after all what everything will be if machines do all the work!
What was that? They are so far ahead of the curve that they are practically distributing what is not even getting produced but so what? You nitpickers are the reason why the world is so slow to progress!
