Robots doing more physical tasks in the
workplace will undoubtedly continue. Just as software has already
made the number of people required to do a whole range of processes
fall precipitously; whether mechanical arms and sensory apparatus are
involved or not.
This is not news. It is, in fact,
practically a cliche now. Just as the standard response that any
workers replaced will have new technical opportunities they can
retrain for; to supposedly design or maintain these systems. Leaving
aside the question of how ever increasing iterations of retraining
are going to be paid for, let alone endured, or whether software will
capture these as well, one is left to ask the question: Why are these
stories presented as news?
Or maybe that's not quite the right way
to put it. Maybe the question is why are these presented in the same
kinds of serious tones as would more bad weather, more crime, or more
political unrest. In other words as a part of the daily dirge of what
you should be worried about, and/or afraid of.
Are they warning us, however
unconsciously, of the ever more problematic nature of human skill as
a commodity? Is the fear instilled meant to provide counter weight to
any nascent desire of labor to reorganize so as to better protect its
dwindling stake in any say of how the fruits of production are
divided? Surely there must be some bottom line motivation here. If it
is not a call to do something to counter this situation than mustn't
it be for ulterior motives? Self serving from some frame of
reference?
The question then becomes which frame
of reference? And by implication, what criteria do we use to
determine who would be likely to have such a frame of reference? And
lest you are now ready to come to what might seem the obvious
conclusion let me provide a caution.
Greedy Capitalists might certainly seem
likely targets here, but there is an even more terrifying scenario
that may be at play. The problem is, as humans compete with
electrified skill retrieval systems, and they are thus left with less
income as a result, who is going to buy the ever increasing largess
of this new found robotic productivity? Are they going to create
virtual people to live virtual lives tied to the robotic production?
Are they going to keep the rest of us around to serve as a kind of
retro accoutrement of entitlement? The more of such servitors being
the final arbiter of status? Hoping therein that, between the
entitled and the rest of us, enough consumption can continue?
Distasteful as those might be, what is
even more frightening is the prospect that they simply don't have a
clue as to what they are heading towards as they work this inherent
contradiction to its ultimate point of collapse. Perhaps having some
notion of the motives listed above in the back of their minds, but
not really knowing how it would be done, or maintained, and being
otherwise too preoccupied with spending, and/or making more to spend.
In the meantime these milestones of so
called progress get reported, for the most part, simply because they
are there and ought to mean something; the serious tone more front
than anything else so as to suggest the reporters are doing more than
just filling air time. Or perhaps they are the truly frightened and
they are seriously hoping somebody will figure this out in time.
I will leave you with one last
question. Who is left to figure it out? Who is left to do anything
about it?Who is reading this report?
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