Futurology

People have long said that new technology only creates more jobs. To those people, I would like to direct your attention to the cart-horse. Around a hundred years ago, before electric cars, people used to go around on horses, or in carts and wagons pulled by horses. Horses were an integral part of the transport system, and most horses were employed as such, even being bred specifically to cope with higher demand on people needing to go places. With the advent of the car, large swathes of the horse population became unnecessary, and the population dwindled to a new equilibrium as fewer horses were needed in transport, but fewer horses were also bred. Compared to the busy, hard life horses had to put up with only a few decades ago, most horses nowadays, although there a fewer of them, live a life of comparative luxury, living in fields most of the day where they are free to graze, are given good food by their owners that care about them, and are only occasionally ridden by humans, and even when they are, it is far more relaxed and more of an enjoyable activity than horse-riding was when it was the only way to get somewhere, and done on a daily basis.

Humans often have this idea that they are special. That they are the only ones that can weave cloth – until it is automated. That they are the only ones who can make pottery – until it is automated. That human labour is the only way to get power – until power production is automated with the advent of electricity. That they are the only ones can be ‘creative’, who can write stories, make art, play music – until that is automated too. True, in all those cases, humans were still involved in the process to some extent, mostly for quality control and maintenance, but far fewer humans are needed to create the same amount of stuff – whether physical goods or more ‘idea-like’ stuff such as art – than before. In fact, recent progress has shown video games that were even tested and quality controlled by AI, as well as being programmed by AI and using AI generated assets, doing away with the need for humans entirely. This is analogous to the true scenario that I outlined in the first paragraph, and is not necessarily a bad thing.

It is quite likely that, in an impossible to predict timespan (it may be 20 years, it may be much more), humans will have developed technology with the capacity to completely create all the things we need, and more – good food, comfortable shelter, entertainment, and so on. Some will argue that this cessation of the need for humans to work will results in economic collapse and mass hardships, but this is a small minded perspective, often viewed through a capitalistic lens. The horses didn’t have a population explosion and lack of resources due to their work being gone, on the contrary, their numbers dwindled – which is not a bad thing, as long as it is through natural means, which it was, it just means that every individual has more attention and resources – and their lives improved, since they no longer had to endure hard labour every day just to survive. It is certainly attainable for the same thing to happen to us. Population growth is already falling in developed countries, and only people who are unable to image a world without human labour see this as a bad thing. If less humans work every year, and more AIs do their jobs, it balances out, and is a way to ease into a world where there is very little to no human labour, and all our needs and most of our wants are produced by AI. As much as many people dislike the sentiment, this would not work in a capitalistic world where what someone gets is dependent on what they contribute to society, for self-evident reasons (those being that no one would need to contribute anything to society if it is all being done by robots), and therefore in a world where all necessary labour is done by AI, we would have to move to a system where everyone gets resources simply by dint of existing, rather than needing to contribute anything themselves. You can call this socialism if you want, it doesn’t really matter what you call it. This system would have the benefit of reducing stress caused by the feeling that you are obligated to do something, while not removing the ability to contribute something if you want – after all, it is necessary labour that has been abolished, not all labour, and just as horses are still used as a novelty and entertainment today, and many people value hand-made pottery, food, etc., over manufactured counterparts, there is likely to still be a desire for art, objects, and stories made by humans even in such a world where all necessary labour has been abolished.

This also deals with the counterpoint made by many that people will struggle for a sense of meaning and purpose in a world where there is no necessary labour – first of all, people struggle for meaning and purpose even when they do work necessarily, and second of all, as mentioned above, they can still do unnecessary, but still valued labour, and get the same meaning and purpose from that.

Some people, myself included, think that although the above scenario may work in theory, in practise it would be difficult to get the billionaires and billionaires’ puppets in government to agree to such a sensible system when the huge benefit to everyone may come at a small cost to themselves – even if the cost is just ego, even if they could still keep all their material resources. I admit, I don’t see a good solution to this problem myself, but I hope we can think of one together, as this is a world many, including myself, would like to live in.