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We will all have more leisure time in the future: Difference between revisions

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We will all have more leisure time in the future (view source)

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{{a|maxim|
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[[File:Dinocheckers.jpg|450px|thumb|center|Our future. Pity the poor robot serving the grappa and periodically wipe our arses: having to watch the idiot [[meatware]] mangle a basic Spassky/Fischer opening will be some kind of ''torture''.]]  
[[File:Dinocheckers.jpg|450px|thumb|center|Our future. Pity the poor [[robo-slave]] (out of picture): having to watch the idiot [[meatware]] mangle a basic Spassky/Fischer opening must be some kind of ''torture''.]]}}This idea, propagated by [[thought leader]]s like {{author|Ray Kurzweil}},<ref>{{br|The Singularity is Near}}</ref> John Cryan<ref>[[Rumours of our demise are greatly exaggerated - technology article|Rumours of our demise are greatly exaggerated]].</ref> and dashing young heir to the Susskind clairvoyance dynasty {{author|Daniel Susskind}},<ref>{{br|A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond}}. See also {{author|David Goodhart}}’s more thoughtful (but still, on this point, misguided) {{br|Head Hand Heart}}.</ref> posits that [[Chatbot|robots]] and [[artificial intelligence]] will, shortly, supplant the need for human labour ''altogether''. We, the [[meatware]], will shortly be [[Technological unemployment|technologically redundant]]. The ''lot'' of us.
}}The idea, propagated by [[thought leader]]s like {{author|Ray Kurzweil}}<ref>{{br|The Singularity is Near}}</ref> and latterly {{author|Daniel Susskind}}<ref>{{br|A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond}}. See also {{author|David Goodhart}}’s more thoughtful (but still, on this point, misguided) {{br|Head Hand Heart}}.</ref> that [[Chatbot|robots]] and [[artificial intelligence]] will, shortly, entirely supplant the need for human labour. The most pressing problem: ''what to do with all the spare time we’ll suddenly have?''  


Seeing as the [[meatware]] will no longer be needed to operate [[Jacquard loom]]s, wipe bottoms, write wishfully dystopian technological tracts or formulate business change programmes, we will loaf around instead, playing [[chess]] and drinking grappa in the Peloponnese, like modern-day Greek pensioners. It sounds great, doesn’t it!
Which poses the question: seeing as we won’t be working [[Jacquard loom]]s, wiping arses, writing [[A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond - Book Review|wishful dystopian techno-political tracts]] or [[Change manager|managing business change programmes]] anymore, ''what to do with all the spare time we’ll suddenly have?''


(Let’s not dwell on the thought that the robo-slave engaged to serve the grappa and wipe our arses could wipe the floor with us at chess, too, if it wanted to.)
On this view there be nothing left to do: we will all just loaf around, playing [[chess]] and drinking grappa the way Mediterranean pensioners always have, only with robo-slaves hovering around to serve the booze and wipe our arses. Sounds great, doesn’t it! Especially if you don’t dwell on the thought that your [[robo-slave]] could wipe the floor with you at [[chess]], too, if it felt like it.


Now if something about this idea nudges your implausibility hooter, you would not be alone: there are at least two of us.  
In any case: ''nice lack of work, if you can get it''.  


For one thing, recent experience which, from our [[perspective chauvinism|vantage point]], has been some kind of technological [[Cambrian explosion]], so far has had ''quite the opposite effect''. There is more work than ever. it might be utterly [[tedious]]; it might crush the very will to power within each of us, but presently it is well and truly barricading the way to that chessboard in Στούπα.
Now if something about this scenario nudges your implausibility hooter, that makes two of us. For one thing, from our [[perspective chauvinism|vantage point]], the last thirty-odd years have been one long [[Cambrian explosion]] of technology (''t’internet! iPhones! SETI@home! Uber! Drones!''), but so far there is no sign of ''any'' extra leisure time. Work — new work, derivative work, previously unimagined work — is piling up. Granted, a lot of it is ''crap'' work: [[internal audit]], software [[change manager|change management]], six-sigma process analysis and [[talent acquisition]] — hardly the effervescent future we envisaged as wild undergraduate dreamers — but it definitely is work, and it definitely ''isn’t'' going away. (You do wonder: had our elders foreseen this new world of work, would they have told us? [[Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?]])


So, for that matter, has ancient history: the unerring consequence of technological revolution, since the plough, has been ''more work''.
In any case, the unknowable ''then'' has coagulated into a crushing ''now'', and the reality is this: ''there is more work to do now than ever.'' Work is here, it is overwhelming, it is debilitating, and it is barricading the way to that chessboard in Στούπα, with no end in sight.  


But, but, but: ''[[this time is different]]''.
The millenarians ask us to believe that a 5,000-year-old asymptote will suddenly invert. But ''how''? ''When''? ''Why''? ''No-one knows what we will be doing in ineffable, co-evolving future'': ''we'' don’t, and [[chatbot]]s ''definitely'' don’t. It might not be [[Change manager|regulatory change programme management]] (though, ahhh, don’t ''bet'' on it) but, if the past is any guide, it ''will'' be something, it ''will'' be [[tedious]], and it sure as hell ''won’t'' be slugging back ''génépi'' over a backgammon board in the ''Haute-Savoie''.


The theory of [[technological unemployment]] assumes:
“Ahh,” say the [[digital prophet]]s of our time, “but ''is'' the past any guide? We say it is not.<ref>They have learned the compliance mantra: [[Past results are no guarantee of future performance]].</ref> ''[[This time is different]]''. This time the machines will ''not'' just be our handmaidens; ''they will replace us altogether''.”
*that all labour activities in the economy can, and before long, will have been articulated in such a way that they can be entirely, reliably and cheaply carried out by [[artificial intelligence]];
*that once they have been automated, those labour activity will nonetheless hold their value;
*that an economy which has been thus automated, and to which the majority of participants no longer contribute, will still function more or less as normal, and
*that, in other words, an entire economy not only can be fully determined but has been ''solved'': that our current polity is in some kind of fully [[Taxonomy|taxonomised]], [[Taylorism|Taylorised]] end-of-history state in which no new activities or work categories can emerge, and all that do currently exist can be more effectively carried out by machine.  
These three assumptions being transparently absurd, this gets the [[Yngwie Malmsteen paradox]] 180° back to front. Increasing automation will create ''more'' [[risk]], not ''less''; will generate ''more'' [[complexity]] not ''less'', and ''more'' potential for catastrophe, not ''less''. We will all be kept busy.


Okay; let’s run with that for now. Even if you are right, [[thought leader]] types, your theory of [[technological unemployment]] assumes:
*that all human activity in the economy can be and, before long ''will'' have been, articulated in a way that can be entirely, reliably and cheaply carried out by [[artificial intelligence]];
*that once they have been so articulated, those activities will nonetheless hold their value and won’t become ''worthless'' overnight, as has every other artisanal craft made redundant by machinery in human history;<ref>Ask yourself: how much would you pay to deliver a first-class email? Or to get your digital photographs developed?</ref>
*that an economy which has been thus automated to saturation, and to which human participants no longer contribute, will still function more or less as normal, and
*that, in other words, an entire economy not only can be fully determined —  ''solved'' — but has been: that our current polity is in a fully [[Taxonomy|taxonomised]], [[Taylorism|Taylorised]] end-of-history state in which no new activities or work categories are possible, and all that machines can look after those that do exist.
''These assumptions are transparently absurd''. They get the [[Yngwie Malmsteen paradox]] 180° back to front. The more information processing power we have, the more complicated our information structures will be. This is because we are lazy, backward-looking creatures. Increasing automation increases [[complexity]], multiplies the interconnectivity between components of our distributed systems, accelerates the speed at which data circulates, and [[Tight coupling|tightens the couplings]] between components. The [[JC]] has been harping on about [[systems theory]] and [[complexity]] a lot recently, but these are not trivial problems. [[Artificial intelligence]] cannot solve them. We are going to be needed for a long time yet.
In a {{nutshell}}: put away the checkerboard and stick the ''limoncello'' back in the cupboard. There’s work to do.
<small>''This article was written by a disembodied neural network.  © 2020 Klaatu Barada Nikto''.</small>
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*[[Rubbish maxims]]
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*[[This time is different]]
*[[This time is different]]
*[[Perspective chauvinism]]
*[[Perspective chauvinism]]
*[[Systems theory]]


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