Will Humans Become Redundant In Your Lifetime?

by Ian R Thorpe.
(Picture: copyright free websource)
The widening gap between investment in job killing technology and in job creation for human
workers makes nonsense of' promises to "focus on job creation" and their ehortations to young
people to stay in full timed education and saddle themselves with debt in order to get a degree
!ualification" This dehumanisation of industry and commerce means the prospects look bright for
robots and computers but where do people stand in the food chain# $n the fringes unless you live
on inherited wealth or are part of an academic and political elite% The &aily 'tirrer"
(e are bombarded every day with news of new uses for computers and machines that initially
augment but will eventually replace human labour" )oogle claims to have developed cars that drive
themselves% algorithms can write news stories from data% compose music or poetry and% it is claimed
though somewhat eaggeratedly% fool real people that they are conversing with humans (in tests the
only people fooled were scientists and they are not real people% they're nerds) % *n +apan and
increasingly in the west factories run ,lights out- for weeks at a time with little or no human
presence re!uired"
.istorically% technology revolutions spawn waves of creative destruction that produce new kinds of
jobs" /or instance% the industrial revolution put artisans out of work but employed legions of
unskilled laborers" The upshot of this was the 0uddite riots% when gangs of skilled workers% fearing
for their livelihood% would burn mills and factories% smash machines and even abduct relatives of
the owners"
Today all over the developed world national unemployment rates stand at its highest points for
many decades" *n 'pain% one of 1urope's most threatened nations% thanks largely to its commitment
to "sustainable" energy which left factories silent and homes in darkness until the already heavily
indebted government started to import electricity from /rance's nuclear plants% the unemployment
rate is a shade over 234% or one in five" There and elsewhere out of work protesters are taking to the
streets" The so called 5rab 'pring uprising were not triggered by a desire for democracy as the ever
more clownish 6arack $bama likes to claim% but by the hardships imposed by high unemployment%
downward pressure on wages as a result of this and by rising prices impacting on living standards"
1verywhere% as the global population eplodes% work 7 which is one of the secondary human needs%
not essential to sustain life but important in sustaining a community 7 is being done by machines%
jobs are being destroyed" 5s a long time *nformation Technology professional * am more aware than
most people of the damage inflicted on society by the internet" (e are all re!uired to laud and etol
the net as one of the great technological advances yet apart from making us all more likely to be
isolated% blurring the lines between fantasy and reality and shortening the attention span% it has been
a huge job killer" *n many of 6ritain's town and city centres up to a third of shops now stand empty%
victims of the switch to online trading"
5 new book% ,8ace 5gainst the 9achine- from 9*T researchers 1rik 6rynjolfsson and 5ndrew
9c5fee argues that jobs lost since the )reat 8ecession haven:t returned partly because companies
have invested more heavily in automated technology% rather than hiring (outsourcing is another
cause)" The authors spell out the conse!uences in an article published in The 5tlantic:
,The threat of technological unemployment is real" To understand this threat% we:ll define three
overlapping sets of winners and losers that technical change creates: (;) high7skilled vs" low7skilled
workers% (2) superstars vs" everyone else% and (<) capital vs" labour" 1ach set has well7documented
facts and compelling links to digital technology" (hat:s more% these sets are not mutually eclusive"
*n fact% the winners in one set are more likely to be winners in the other two sets as well% which
concentrates the conse!uences"-
=obody is immune" 5dministrative and sales functions are being automated and though customers
might hate dealing with robotic voices instructing them to press a number for ordering% another for
checking delivery dates economics are all and in the end machines are cheaper% do not call in sick%
do not join unions and do not get pregnant > injure themselves playing dangerous sports" *n the
coming decades% advanced pattern recognition software and 5*7driven systems will replace much of
what knowledge workers do today% including those in the retail% legal and information technology
industries"
The trend has led eperts like &ouglas 8ushkoff to !uestion if work is obsolete and if society
should continue to organi?e itself around employment or look for other ways to occupy humans
before they descent into self destructive lifestyles through sheer boredom"" $thers% mainly those
who would themselves prefer to be machines as they have never been comfortable with emotions%
view this labour revolution with optimism% claiming that we have a place alongside machines" *t is
making us confront the fundamental !uestion of what humans are good at and potentially epose a
greater meaning to life" This is all very well but in this scientific utopia probably @34 or more of us
would find no place for our skills" The nerd elite do not much care for music% art% literature or poetry
the things humans ecel at and from eperience * can tell you machines are utter crap at"
$ne fan of this drive to make us the slaves of machines has written% "$ver the net decade% while
machines will replace humans in some tasks% they:ll also amplify us% enabling us to do things we
never dreamed of doing before" (e:ll enter into a new kind of partnership with these machinesA
one that will shine light on the uni!ue comparative advantages of humans: thinking% creativity%
spontaneity% adaptability% and improvisation"" 8eally# *n the fifty years since computer and digital
technology started to have an impact on society large swathes of the population have started to
rapidly de7evolve% heading back towards the knuckle dragging% selfish% impulsive state of our early
early ancestors"
The (orld /uture 'ociety argues that industries that undergo technological transformation don:t
disappear% but the number of jobs they support sure do" /or instance% agribusiness employed half the
population in the early ;B33:s but now provides just <4 of all jobs" &avid 5utor% an economist at
9*T% says that the transition towards a post7industrial economy will see a clustering of job
opportunities at opposite ends of the skills spectrum where machines have yet to foray"CPD
5t one end of the spectrum are low7paying service7oriented jobs that re!uire personal interaction
and the manipulation of machinery in unpredictable environments% such as cooking food in a busy
kitchen% or taking care of pre7schoolers" 5t the other end are jobs that re!uire creativity% ambiguity%
and high levels of personal training and judgment" These include jobs that re!uire both physical and
advanced mental capabilities e"g"% doctors and engineers or in tasks that involve rapid decision
making in unpredictable and unprecedented situations such as nurses and plumbers" The nerds may
cream themselves dreaming of machines that can think like humans% but forgetting the "like
humans" bit% * have described how machines filter data previously *69 to build a chip that emulates
the human brain" 6asically it comes down to "*f E F n then do action"" =ow that is not by any
definition thinking"
5ccording to the sociologists GH4 of today:s school pupils will end up in a non job% paper
shuffling or bean counting in a government office or in a pointless manual task simply for the sake
of keeping them occupied" Ilearly the establishment and the business and commercial worlds have
not thought through the likely conse!uences of this cra?y drive to dehumanisation of work"
Politicians% academic institutions% and business leaders need to think about what will happen to
society if machines are used to make humanity redundant in the name of efficiency and profit" (e
are pitifully unprepared for the challenges of a world with seven billion people in it% if half those
people are surplus to re!uirements who knows what kind of trouble they may cause just to make life
interesting"
,The activities that make us human J thinking% dreaming% learning% communicating% and feeling% are
the skills that are the most difficult to program" *n a contest of ,man vs" machine-% people will
continue to shine and outperform in these areas for years to come%- says the (orld /uture 'ociety"
That's all very well but what about the people who aren't e!uipped to be artists% musicians% writers%
performers% poets% philosophers or athletes" There are rather more of them than the "eperts" appear
to think"
8105T1& P$'T':
'laves To The 9achine
The /light /rom /reedom ('cribd)
'o Tinfoil .ats 5re =ot 'uch 5 6ad *dea 5fter 5ll
The K*nternet of Things: 232H: Lour life controlled by the smart grid
The Panopticon
'killed (ork (ithout The (orker
Mnemployment /alls 5s Part Time (orking .its 8ecord 0evels 5nd 9ore &rop $ut $f The
(orkforce
)reen Policies (ill =ot 'ave The Planet 6ut 5re Iosting Poor /amilies The 1arth