What about jobs?
What does ''job'' mean Aldo?
‘A paid position of regular employment, a task or piece of
work, especially one that is paid’.
It seems pretty important to me. After a certain point in
every human being’s life, his work does not only takes a large part of his
everyday life but it also determines his position in the society in so many ways.
I am not going to argue if this should happen or not since in my opinion we are
not just workers but more or less we can all agree that this is the reality we
live in. So how is the Singularity going to affect future jobs and as a result social
classes?
As has already happen so many times in human history, after
a revolution, some professions eclipse and some others emerge. The difference
in this case is that no profession will vanish but it will be executed by
machines rather than humans. So the upcoming Singularity will bring major
changes to the work force but not on the work itself. The same type of work
will be done, only this time faster, more efficient and most importantly
cheaper. You have to pay a human every month to do his job, but you only buy a
robot once. Plus robots will not ask every once in a while for a raise (or will
they?).
So we are going to face a situation in which there will be
jobs, but humans that have been doing them for years, will not be any more ‘’up
to date’’ for them. It is obvious that manual labor will be affected the most
since it is easier to replace it. Up to a point this has already started. However
the biggest problem from our point of view, is that we will be helpless against
these circumstances. Both physically and mentally. I mean it is one thing losing your job to a better candidate (you can make a better application next time,
get more experience, improve your knowledge on a subject) and a completely different
one losing it to a machine that is de facto more efficient than every man and
woman on earth. We will not be able to go against the evolution itself. They will
be stronger, faster, smarter and holding a vast amount of information in their hard
drives. And there is nothing we can do about it. Unfortunately no employee will
be safe. How long is it before we start visiting AI doctors, AI lawyers or
assigning the building of our houses to AI civil engineers and architects?
The optimistic scenario is that we will be free of doing any
kind of work, from legislation and curing diseases to going to the supermarket
and cleaning our houses. In a way we will be in a state of eternal vacations.
In this case we would be able to use our limited time on earth as we please,
and maybe this would lead us to a more intellectual level where we will have
more time for meditation, reading, doing research. Others might prefer
traveling, partying or simply going for fishing. A problem that occurs
nevertheless is that none of us would get paid. Our world will still be based
on consumption, but who will consume? We would most certainly like to do it but
we would lack the funding. As for the robots I am not quite sure what their
needs will be. We could establish a universal salary for every human being, one
that would be equal for each and every one of us, so that we keep the wheel
spinning. Allow me to be wary of how this suggestion would be
accepted by a particular part of our society
. Another solution would be acknowledging the
robot’s right to get paid. In this way they would have to pay taxes as well, which
would keep the market’s flow. So many question have risen in my mind right now
that I will probably have to do a new post about this future where robots get
paid and we don’t.
There is of course the pessimistic scenario in which we end
up being useless passengers on planet earth with no purpose in our lives, just
trying to find ways to pass our remaining lifetime in the least miserable way
possible.
We can always dance around fires singing and summoning
spirits.
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